The Village That the AI Chose - John Gates;Ellis Thorne

Milo Patch came to Verity Station to stop. To stop fixing things, caring about things, being needed by things. He is sixty-two years old, retired, and extremely committed to watching nothing happen from his porch with a spoon.

He manages this for three years, two months, and approximately eleven days.

Then a crate arrives in the supply drop that nobody ordered. Inside it: a device the size of a large cat, dense with iridescent filaments, warm to the touch, and producing a low, steady hum that seems - and Milo is aware of how this sounds - to know when someone has entered the room.

The mega-corporation that made it wants it back. The residents of Verity Station - a postmistress who sorts mail by smell, a pair of arguing twins, an eighty-three-year-old with seventeen impossible houseplants, and a child who draws everything she sees - have quietly, politely, and with excellent baked goods, decided otherwise.

A funny, tender, and unexpectedly moving novel about what it means to be chosen - and to choose back.