Probably the most interesting is M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything, a work of speculative fiction, that broad genre of fantasy, sci-fi and more. While there have been notable Booker nods to speculative fiction it is not common. Harrison has been an admired writer for years. The novel throws the reader into a post-apocalyptic England where aliens have arrived, and society is breaking down but, in the midst of it, no-one is sure what is going on. It contains some very funny scenes amidst the bleakness. At one point, the tough elderly woman accompanying an alien tells it off for not paying for clothes at a secondhand shop. In another, she and the alien sort a deck of cards but cannot understand how the other has arrived at their sorting.
