M John Harrison’s latest novel, *The End of Everything*, offers a complex, genre-defying exploration set in a post-apocalyptic Britain, blending elements of science fiction, gothic, and social commentary. Published in 2026, the novel centers around the mysterious substance known as astromyxin or star jelly—a gelatinous, translucent material historically shrouded in legend and scientific debate. Harrison reimagines astromyxin as the physical embodiment of an otherworldly invasion from the astral plane by entities called the iGhetti.

The novel’s setting is a Britain isolated by a pervasive fog, where societal structures have collapsed. The City of London, along with key financial hubs worldwide, is infested by the iGhetti, described as bursts of light that create fragile replicas of early-2000s architecture. Economic systems have failed, children fashion figures from ash, and the boundaries of time and space are distorted. Reality itself is unstable, with characters risking encounters with “bad patches” that trap them in cyclical experiences of past or simultaneous events.

*The End of Everything* follows two main characters along England’s south coast: Marnie, an elderly artist coping with memory lapses and armed with a gun, and her nephew Phillip, a beachcomber in possession of an alien artifact believed to be discarded technology from the iGhetti invasion. Through their journeys, the novel explores themes of identity, memory loss, and civilizational decline within a fractured world.

Harrison’s narrative style shifts between omniscient and conspiratorial, reflecting the instability of testimony and perception. The characters, who frequently exhibit flat emotional responses even in violent situations, resist easy identification. This narrative ambiguity compounds the novel’s themes of alienation and the human need for understanding amidst chaos, as characters grapple with unreliable sources of information and distorted realities.

Descriptive passages evoke a stark and precise topography, shifting from tangible settings—such as Marnie’s terraced house by the estuary—to surreal, symbolic imagery reminiscent of historical and cultural references. The novel incorporates motifs related to English mythos and critiques nationalist nostalgia, confronting the notion that the past is immutable.

While *The End of Everything* can be read as a sophisticated critique of financial sectors or the internet age, Harrison himself describes it as simultaneously a seaside, Brexit, gothic, and road novel. The work demands sustained engagement, unsettling readers with its nonlinear causality and repeated narrative “curling” into an astral realm.

Harrison, who turns 81 next month, is known for his contributions to experimental science fiction and speculative literature. His earlier works range from space opera and gnostic horror to explorations of obsession and alienation, reflecting a career committed to challenging conventional genres and political complacency. He views the apocalypse not as a science fiction trope but as an urgent reality to be confronted through literature.

Arriving amid contemporary global uncertainty, *The End of Everything* resonates with the current era’s crises, including environmental collapse, political fragmentation, and technological disruption. The novel’s intricate blend of myth, decay, and speculative fiction offers a demanding but richly rewarding reading experience that has been described as both beautiful and profoundly disorienting.