‘We are dream-walking into a desperate situation’: the Booker prize winner on his sci-fi alien invasion wakeup call

He is a sci-fi titan but M John Harrison has just exploded into the mainstream – with The End of Everything, an apocalyptic novel set on the Kent coast. Does he really think we have no hope left? With his twinkling eyes and silver ponytail, M John Harrison doesn’t seem anything l

He is a sci-fi titan but M John Harrison has just exploded into the mainstream – with The End of Everything, an apocalyptic novel set on the Kent coast. Does he really think we have no hope left? With his twinkling eyes and silver ponytail, M John Harrison doesn’t seem anything like his 81 years.

The M stands for Michael, Mike to his friends. And last night he became the oldest author to win the Booker prize for fiction, for his 13th novel, The End of Everything. Our interview is delayed because of wifi issues, which is fitting given that the novel is about – among many things – what happens when non-human intelligence takes over.

The End of Everything is the first sci-fi novel to have won the prize in its 58-year history, which is almost as long as Harrison has been writing. “It’s interesting,” he replies, when asked if he feels vindicated, “that something that has an SF-adjacent feel can be regarded as a serious book and given the Booker prize. My problem has always been that I don’t believe in genre.

I don’t believe in it in any way.” He gently wags his finger at me. It is a bit like having coffee with a cheerier, more neatly bearded Gandalf – it will surprise no one that, in his youth, Harrison read The Lord of the Rings every year for a decade. Continue reading...