The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances by Glenn Dixon Review

In a near future, where even the smallest of appliances are sentient, a young Roomba vacuum sets out to save the humans of her house from a rising technological power in this compelling, original novel.
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In a self-running, smart house, a young and sentient Roomba listens as her owner, Harold, reads aloud to his dying wife, Edie. Mesmerized by To Kill a Mockingbird and craving the human connection she witnesses in Harold’s stories, the little vacuum renames herself Scout and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
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But when Edie passes away, Scout and her fellow sentient appliances discover that there are sinister forces in their midst. The omnipresent Grid, which monitors every household in the City, seeks to remove Harold from his home, a place he’s lived in for fifty years.
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With the help of Adrian, a neighborhood boy who grows close to Scout and Harold, as well as Kate, Harold and Edie’s formerly estranged daughter, the humans and the appliances must come together to outwit the all-controlling Grid lest they risk losing everything they hold dear.

This review is based on a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy provided by Atria Books.

Mixing existential discussions and human feelings with dystopian AI themes and fears, Glenn Dixon’s the Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances is a thoughtful and compact speculative fiction novel that is as charming as it is bleak. Initially cozy before transitioning to its more cautionary back-half, this book is a highly accessible and quick read that carries the spirit of Thomas M. Disch’s the Brave Little Toaster aged up and modernized. Inspired by yet very much its own creation and story, this is a cute novel for those looking for a concise speculative fiction read.

Presented through multiple POV’s that include multiple humans and a smart vacuum cleaner named Scout, the Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances introduces the reader to the elderly couple Harold and Edie Winters who have an unassuming house in a residential suburb. The early chapters follow Scout and her fellow smart appliances and devices in the house observing an ailing Edie slowly succumb to her illness as Harold continues his best efforts to comfort her. Despite the somber circumstances of Edie’s declining health, the first half of the book has a distinctly cozy and relaxed feel. As Harold struggles to come to terms with the reality of what is happening while one of Edie’s piano students Adrian begins to practice playing in her absence, Scout begins to develop increasingly sentient thought processes and questions that go against their fundamental protocols and programming rules. Between domestic activities and household maintenance, the book has some wonderful quotable excerpts from Scout’s discussions about human feelings, metaphors and other intangible concepts that have no quantifiable or definitive weight with the simple-minded Fridge and the gruff and mature Clock. These early chapters are where the book feel most inspired by the Brave Little Toaster, combining a light sense of whimsy with Scout’s childlike innocence. Some of Harold and Edie’s scenes and her lasting impressions on the house are also reminiscent of Up’s emotional and award-winning opening montage.

As the story progresses, Harold and Edie’s adult daughter Kate returns home to help Harold sort through Edie’s belongings. At this point, the story pivots sharply into a dystopian narrative that is foreshadowed lightly through brief glimpses of the world and life outside of the Winter’s home. Without going into too much detail, the all-encompassing, overseeing entity Grid starts to monitor the home and its inhabitants, transitioning the quiet story about human feelings and pain into one of AI fears and ruthlessly cold systematic management of society. As she returns home from the outside world, she brings to the story intriguing speculative fiction topics of concentration of resources, declining populations, environmental degradation and subsequent repair, digital management of life, and systematic oversights. The earlier chapters that highlight Scout’s increasing self-awareness and curiosity in human experiences are effectively shown as a foil to Grid’s hyper efficiency and data-oriented approach to administration that neglects the feelings, sentiments, and factors of being alive. The juxtaposition of Scout’s care and desire to protect her human owners against a system designed to remove all human error and considerations from the picture is where I found the story to hit its stride. Popular fears around unrestricted AI use and development are taken to an extreme and this book’s portrayal will make you second guess every time you call for Alexa or Google to do a personalized task or query for you. After a tense and dramatic development that affects the future of the house, the quiet, open-ended, and bittersweet epilogue that followed was a touching end to Scout’s story and care for her owners.

While the themes of human feelings and experiences are relevant throughout the story, at times I felt like the two halves of the book felt a bit disjointed both in terms of narrative content as well as pacing. The first half that explores Harold’s pain with the loss of Edie and his conflicted feelings about Kate’s mysterious absence was quiet, thoughtful, perhaps a touch slow where I wasn’t quite sure who the primary character and interest was supposed to be. The marketing blurb would suggest Scout but it seems more of the book is told from Harold’s POV which I felt was unnecessary; it could’ve perhaps been more effective and subtle by providing context clues from other characters around him and the story’s thematic strengths being louder via the words and thoughts left unsaid.

The second half of the book that highlights the strong dystopian elements on the other hand is fast-paced, almost entirely from Kate and Scout’s perspectives, and drops the previous cozy and thoughtful exploration for dire and bleak dystopia. While the first half sometimes felt meandering or included certain details that didn’t feel relevant to the story, to me the dystopian back half felt like it needed more world-building, exploration, or development. Most of Kate’s backstory and connections outside of the Winter’s household were quite interesting in theory but felt rushed through. Many of Grid’s extreme processing logic or the world’s operation/society implications felt skimmed over or mentioned in off-hand moments. Additionally, while the aforementioned epilogue was tonally fitting for the story and a wonderfully quiet sendoff for Scout and Kate, the ending left something to be desired for Harold and Adrian who are sort of left hanging in a “we survived this but what now” sort of way. I felt like even just a short epilogue chapter would’ve been enough to close Harold’s story considering how much of the book’s first half revolved around his loss and outlook on the future. An argument could be made that Harold was simply playing a supporting role and provided plot mechanisms to inspire Scout’s curiosities but if that’s the case, chapters revolving around Harold’s POV could be seen as unnecessary padding and time that could’ve been better spent slowing down the dystopian sections of the story.

Cozy while bleak, thoughtful then fearful, the Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances is an interesting book that covers a lot of compelling topics and speculative fiction elements. While narratively creative, this novel is easy to follow and read in one or two sittings and is a great book for more casual readers that may struggle with other speculative fiction stories that are overly complex or lengthy. For me the story had some tonal inconsistencies, and I felt like the story could’ve benefitted from reflecting on the human experiences deeper, exploring the book’s dystopian society and world further, or even focusing more on the appliances’ perspectives and upping the whimsy factor. However as is, it’s still largely a satisfying read and one that does Scout’s story justice, the unassuming humble roomba vacuum that’s the heart and soul of Dixon’s book.