[Whisperzzzzzzz]

https://www.theguard...26-booker-prize

Color me intrigued. I've not read much Harrison beyond dabbling in his Virconium books, but I'm going to read his new (and newly award-winning) book.

[QuickTidal]

It's generally been on the BOTTOM (like dead last) of everyone's lists for the noms of the Booker...like people HATE it...and think Harrison failed upwards with it somehow.

And to be fair to those people who hate it, Harrison (I've only read some short fiction) is like REALLY insanely Boomer+ abstract hippie shit...like if you struggle with say someone cerebral off that era like William Gibson, or J.G. Ballard, then Harrison will utterly confound you.

I have not read the work in question, but form what I understand it's very much the same type of word salad, puzzling, intentionally obtuse fiction he's known for.

[amphibian]

Curious to see that "everyone" doesn't include the Booker panel, who chose this as the winner.

I quite like the Virconium books. I may mosey around to this after tackling some of my To Read pile.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 10 November 2026 - 01:58 PM, said:

Curious to see that "everyone" doesn't include the Booker panel, who chose this as the winner.

I quite like the Virconium books. I may mosey around to this after tackling some of my To Read pile.

It's got dismal ratings in most places (review aggregate sites), and I of course was not talking about the Booker panel, there's literally no need to point that out. That's 5 people VS every-one else who read the book. I'm not sure I need to pick sides there.

And this sounds like a Legacy Oscar as opposed to this particular book being worthy of the win.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Yesterday, 03:41 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 10 November 2026 - 02:16 PM, said:

amphibian, on 10 November 2026 - 01:58 PM, said:

Curious to see that "everyone" doesn't include the Booker panel, who chose this as the winner.

I quite like the Virconium books. I may mosey around to this after tackling some of my To Read pile.

It's got dismal ratings in most places (review aggregate sites), and I of course was not talking about the Booker panel, there's literally no need to point that out. That's 5 people VS every-one else who read the book. I'm not sure I need to pick sides there.

And this sounds like a Legacy Oscar as opposed to this particular book being worthy of the win.

Examining review aggregator sites, it seems like professional literary critics generally loved it:

https://bookmarks.re...-of-everything/

OTOH 41% of random people (or bots?) on Goodreads gave it 1 or 2 stars. Not quite majority hate, but not hugely far off either.

Based on excerpts from the reviews by literary critics, it's not all that surprising:

Quote

[Review in the Atlantic:] The End of Everything is brief and confounding; it also doesn't care a whit for the conventions of dystopian fiction [...] bizarrely creative [...] wholly original [...]

[New York Times review:] A fascinating, sometimes frustrating and thoroughly original new novel [...] a masterly exercise in restraint, unsettling beauty and elliptical writing that can enlighten even when it obfuscates

[Guardian review:] Dreamlike and baffling, The End of Everything elucidates humanity's disintegrating existence with strange clarity.

https://bookmarks.re...-of-everything/

So it appears to be more like experimental literary fiction than conventional mass-market genre fiction... which obviously makes the Booker prize win less surprising.

[worry]

I'm not super keyed into the Booker prize -- I did read Lincoln in the Bardo when that won, but that's like 10 years ago (yikes!). This Harrison books is only 200 pages though, so might as well give it a shot. And I mean, everyone's got different priorities, but a book's value isn't only whether I like it or not.

[Tsundoku]

I tried The Pastel City many years ago and bounced off it hard.
It may be that it was because I was younger and it was way different to anything I had been reading before, but I do recall it left me cold and with the overwhelming impression the author was incredibly pretentious.