Neumann is an unknowingly dead-pan creature. He is depressed at the potential for things to one day become ‘perfect’, lest his passion for improvement be quashed. He considers the unpredictable incursion of love to be an ‘independent variable’, and blithely accepts the folly of men who proceed haplessly through life without his scientist’s devotion to logic. This great character’s emotional deficiencies are endearing.

Barry uses Better Future – the company where Neumann works – as the butt of cheeky jokes about corporate culture. As in his novel Company (2006), the CEO of Better Future is a vaunted yet mostly immaterial presence, a kind of chief executive god. Fussing middle managers become malignant when their ability to function is hampered; engineers are dorky creatures. It is entertaining, but Better Future is somewhat cutesy and predictable, and the only frustration with Machine Man is that, when the corporation threatens to become genuinely threatening, the comedy dampens the effect. Perhaps it is unfair to ask of Barry an acerbic, angry novel, especially when the breezy pleasures of Machine Man will suffice for most.