One the one hand you could read this delightful little novel as little more than a quirky and timely summer read in 2026, on the other hand this book might lead you to think about what it means to be human and what sort of a society are we trying to build together. Either way, I suggest you grab this from your local library.
Scout, the main protagonist, is a new vacuum cleaner in the near future when all such appliances are heavily AI driven. She is new, which means young, and learning about the world, about appliances and their roles, about humans and their roles, and her story is tender and moving, for a vacuum at least. At the narrative level this book really comes together and while it must be hard to put one’s self in the wheels of a little vacuum, this feels credibly executed.
Author Glenn Dixon however is striving for much more than the simple fun read. In this novel he is wrestling narratively with some of the deeper questions many ought to be asking as AI rises in utility. He is thinking about what it means to be human, what is the role of emotions, reason and memory. Where does the random, the unpredictable, the liberty-loving element of being human play into, well, what it means to be human. Will algorithms really solve all we hope they will? Will robots learn to recognize our emotions by our body language and how will they respond if they do?
I once took a course at the University of Ottawa about utopian fiction and one of the main points the professor was trying to make is that more often than not one person’s utopia is another person’s nightmare, so that even the fiction meant to suggest a perfect society, will always fall flat or appear offensive to some. The broader society in the novel, driven by computers and optimization of everything, is left somewhat vague but generally feels sinister or threatening. I think Dixon is carefully straddling the line into something more like a dystopian novel, this is his partial vision of a world in which AI has run amok. While generally comfortable for people (think self-driving cars, fridges ordering food deliveries etc. etc.) they are trapped with an authoritarian entity called “the Grid” that may not recognize the importance of experience, of emotions, and memories, and sadness in the humans it is meant to serve, and this—of course—makes it a poor servant indeed. The basic question as we increase our use of AI is what sort of future are we hoping for, really?
The novel, as so many great novels do, also gets into the question of re-incarnation or life after death. What might a young AI-driven vacuum cleaner understand of such ideas? What about the old AI-Driven clock, how would it understand time and lifetimes? Where does sacrifice fit into our lives, either small or total? Where does being uncomfortable on purpose in order to gain something greater fit in? Is it ever ok to hurt? Age old questions in fun package, what more can you ask for!
There is so much going on in this novel, love, loss, tragedy, family, technology, it would be a shame to read it just as the perfect quirky summer 2026 read, though it is that too.
Happy reading!
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