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M John Harrison becomes first science fiction author to win the Booker prize

26 points sorokod 1 hour ago 5 comments

ddxv 38 minutes ago | parent

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241835818/reviews

Wow, pretty divisive, reviews are all over the place. I haven't read it yet, but the reviews seem to tend towards people annoyed at abstract and flowery plot / writing?

I will have to try, but I've also struggled through (possibly) similar books like Gnomon by the British sci-fi author Nick Harkaway which had plots too abstract to properly hold my attention but were well liked by others. Similar but opposite, How to Win the Time War, which was so abstract the whole book was a metaphor, stayed together enough that I followed the plot and enjoyed it (though it was quite short).

Curious how other people here found this book?

MattPalmer1086 28 minutes ago | parent

I am tempted to try this one just because it has won a major award, and I'm a huge sci fi reader.

However, I suspect I will be one of the one star or DNF reviewers - I haven't enjoyed any of the other M John Harrison books I tried. The ideas are usually interesting but the execution tends towards weirdness and not much plot. Great at creating atmosphere but not so good at holding my attention. Maybe I will give it a go...

SideburnsOfDoom 22 minutes ago | parent

I have read The End of Everything and other M. John Harrison books, both conventional rock-climbing memoir and way out space opera.

IMHO if you like Harrison's prose and the atmosphere, keep going. Even if the plot is hard to make out. IHMO, If you are reading M. John Harrison for the plot, then you're in the wrong book.

I can see how some would be bored or baffled by this book, or even dislike it intensely. If you didn't like his other books, then this one is more in that vein, and in some ways more so. If so, you probably won't enjoy this one either.

He has said "A good ground rule for writing in any genre is: start with a form, then ask what it's afraid of" (1) He is deconstructing, not constructing, stories.

The End of Everything has an anti-plot, is set in anti-places and contains at least character that is anti-person.

If it's not for you then that's perfectly OK. I don't pretend to understand why it won an award, but I liked it. Probably. It's hard to be sure. And that's something out of the ordinary.

1) https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jul/20/m-john-harri...

ktallett 12 minutes ago | parent

I'd say it's a deserved winner. I'm not usually someone who reads many booker prize nominees but I happened to have read I think at least 6/7 of the long list and I would say flowery plot and writing is common to getting nominated so I can't complain about that. John of John being far worse for this. I possibly if I had to pick my favourite I would have gone Helen of Nowhere or Switzy but that's simply I'm often very drawn into the type of story Fitzcarraldo publish, (Switzy not being Fitzcarraldo but of a similar vibe).

I think the key for me is sci fi being recoqnised as an important category in media creation. It's a genre that doesn't often get the big awards despite in my view often having some of the best character development and emotional and moral plot lines. Obviously TNG with the late great Patrick Stewart being a huge cultural influence for those reasons.

nxobject 19 minutes ago | parent

Congratulations -- and, it should have happened so, so much more sooner. (It's interesting to think about how Harrison pierced the veil between "genre" and "general literary fiction": he won the Goldsmiths prize in 2020, and judged the Bookers in 2022. His individual recognition as an author was a process.)