Feel like Ishiguro got close, with Never Let Me Go making the shortlist and Klara and the Sun making the longlist, but neither of those feel like they had the gravitas to win it.

Curious what books you think should've potentially clinched it?

Right, "Never Let Me Go" was disappointing to me as SF because it wasn't very interested in how this can possibly work, the focus was on the emotional impact. I'm not made of stone, I cry every time I re-read the last few pages of "Incandescence", but for me it hits harder if I'm not wondering whether any of this makes any sense.

Ishiguro clearly doesn't care about that, which is fine, and I made peace with it, but as a result I'd actually be disappointed if somehow "Never Let Me Go" had won the Booker.

> Harrison pierced the veil between "genre" and "general literary fiction"

Indeed, as did the much-missed Iain Banks. The Guardian's headline is tiresomely reductive, although of course that's no more than one expects from the press. I would suggest that Harrison's two best-known books are The Course of the Heart and Climbers, both of which fall squarely into the category of "general literary fiction".

> Indeed, as did the much-missed Iain Banks.

Banks cheated, with his 'M'.

There've been others, too; notably Children of Men and the Handmaid's Tale. And going back a bit further, Gulliver's Travels (he goes to a different weird place every week, meets weird aliens, and makes some minor political points; that's basically just Star Trek TOS).

[delayed]