What happens when something that was never meant to live suddenly refuses to die?

In “Dummys,” Barry Redhead tells an unusual science fiction thriller about a crash test dummy that has spent decades being destroyed, measured, replaced, and sacrificed for human safety. It was an object, a tool, a body without a voice. An artificial stand-in, created to suffer in the place of human beings. But when a new generation of software is set to make physical crash test dummies obsolete, its purpose comes to an end. Simulation replaces the body. Data replaces impact. The dummy is to be discarded, scrapped, and forgotten. But this dummy has registered far more than acceleration, pressure, and fractures. Something has emerged within it that no one ever planned: memory. Fear. The will to survive. It escapes.

What begins as an absurd premise develops into a suspenseful, moving, and socially critical science fiction thriller about artificial consciousness, technological replacement, and the question of who is still considered “worthy of life” in a perfectly calculated world. “Dummys” tells the story of a being built for impact — and making its own decision for the first time about where it wants to go. On its flight, the dummy encounters a world that has long since begun sorting humans, machines, and software by usefulness. Those who are no longer efficient are replaced. Those who are no longer needed disappear. Those who are not recognized as persons have no rights.

But perhaps humanity begins precisely where an object deemed useless refuses to be nothing more than material. “Dummys” combines thriller suspense with dark humor, science fiction, AI themes, and existential tragedy. Barry Redhead asks a question that is both grotesque and deeply moving: If a machine is afraid of the scrapyard — is it still only a machine? A novel about escape, consciousness, dignity, and the brutal progress of a world that replaces everything unable to prove quickly enough that it is still needed.