Audiobook Review
The End of Everything (2026)
by M. John Harrison
I had my eye on The End of Everything when it made the Booker Longlist. The Booker has shown an appreciation for sci fi/lit fic crossover that I appreciate, though I don't always love the books they pick. Most of the writing I've seen about The End of Everything is written from the perspective of a reader of literary fiction, so I've mostly read about being confused about the plot and, what, if anything is actually going on.
Mostly, The End of Everything seems like a book influenced by Jeff VanDerMeer and his Southern Reach series as well as the internet phenomenon QNTM and his book, There is No Antimetrics Division. I think it is fair to suggest direct influence, since Harrison has been publishing since the late 1960's, and there is little in his prior bibliography that would foreshadow a book as odd as The End of Everything. There was also an element of Kazuo Ishiguro and his work in The Buried Giant and When We Were Orphans. These references should give a prospective reader a better sense of what they are in for then "two people wander around a post-apocolyptic southeastern England."
A more substantial plot description doesn't help: Aliens (the iGhetti) have arrived, though no one knows from where or what they want. They have purposely? accidentally? destroyed human civilization but left humanity behind to cope with the consequences. At times, the characters behave like they are in a reverse W.G. Sebald book, wandering the described landscape of southeastern England with a nary a coherent thought.
The End of Everything is basically everything I'm looking for in a book, and kudos to M. John Harrison for coming up with such an interesting shift in tone so late in his career. Readers looking for satisfying conclusions are best steered elsewhere.
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