India, Oct. 15 -- No one was certain whether the arrival of the iGhetti was an invasion or a natural catastrophe.

They resembled stalks of fleshy, weak rhubarb, appearing and evolving very quickly from nothing, like the tentacles which seem to bulge out of nowhere when you burn a piece of mercuric sulphocyanate. They would appear briefly on the city skyline, behind the buildings and just under the cloud base.

The sirens would go off across London, from Borough to Camden. The artillery would fire and recoil, fire and recoil. The iGhetti would pulse and grow against the lighted clouds. Then they would be gone again for another day.

This is the near-future world M John Harrison builds in The End of Everything, which has been shortlisted f...