alt Hacker Newshttps://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?
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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...
Public reviews are not all over the place -- they are remarkably bad.
https://www.amazon.com/End-Everything-M-John-Harrison-ebook/...
Ever since Amazon.com allowed blank feedback alongside proper reviews, there's been inflation in every book's rating, with most books clustering around 4.2 - 4.6 Stars.
These days, a 4.0 on Amazon means that a book is questionable, divisive, or has editorial errors. A 3.8 has serious issues.
I believe this is because Amazon prompts you for a review/rating after you've finished the book -- if you read on a Kindle, you only get the prompt when the book is at 100% complete -- so those who do not finish a book seem not to rate.
I don't think I've ever seen anything with a 3.1-star rating across >100 reviews. This suggests that the book is exceptionally bad -- that people were motivated to leave poor reviews.
By all accounts it's a very vague story...
Gnomon might be my favorite book ever. It’s one of those books where the first time through it’s disjointed and almost seems like a collection of novellas, then the second read you see the connections from the beginning and it all makes sense, and reads 3+ reward with really deep semiotics and structural parallels that I can only describe as fractal.
So Harrison aside, if you find yourself without reading material at some point, I’d really encourage giving it another try. It’s certainly abstract, but there is incredible depth and coherence throughout.
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.
There are though, themes or images that are of a particular time and place (2026, South coast of England). Most notably Boats taking people across the Channel to some-place uncertain but "not here". If you are somewhere else then that image might not mean anything to you, but the resonance with current UK political discourse must be deliberate. And it helps to "get" it.
In the same way that his last book The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again (2020) was about the fallout, the curdled nostalgia and communication failures of the post-Brexit moment. (2) Maybe. If it's "about" anything other than aquatic humanoids, dodgy jobs and fairy tales, IDK.
1) https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jul/20/m-john-harri...
2) https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/19/the-sunken-lan...
Haven't heard the term "abstract" applied to a plot, unless you mean highly metaphorical? Genuinely curious in case it's something I'd like. What's an example, without giving too much away?
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.
It's literary fiction; lots of people strongly dislike literary fiction. It doesn't sell well. I like it, though. Will definitely read this!