Gliff Books in Order

Gliff opens a new sequence for Ali Smith, set in a near future that feels only a few steps ahead of our own. The story follows children trying to keep hold of their sense of self in a country where everyone is expected to be endlessly documented, categorised and tracked.

The title comes from a Scots word that can mean a sudden fright, a glimpse, a fleeting impression. That idea runs through the book. Smith is interested in the marks we leave on the world and the marks the world leaves on us, especially when governments and companies prefer to see people as data rather than as neighbours.

At the centre are siblings Briar and Rose, who live with their mother and her boyfriend on the edge of a town. Because their records do not add up, the authorities class them as "unverifiable", and a clanking machine begins to draw red circles around houses and people who do not quite fit. The threat of being taken away to a re education centre hangs over them.

When their mother disappears and the red lines close in, the children have to move, improvising a route through back roads and forgotten landscapes. They fall in with a grey horse that Rose names Gliff and with pockets of people still trying to hold on to books, stories and a sense of mutual care in a culture that is shutting libraries and museums and tightening control.

Although the setting is dark, the tone is often funny and quick witted. Briar and Rose squabble, joke and test each other as siblings do, and their questions about borders, identity checks and digital records echo the kinds of conversations many families are having now. Small refusals, shared meals and the act of naming things become quiet forms of resistance.

Readers who know the Seasonal quartet or Companion Piece will recognise concerns that run through Smith's work, from the politics of classification to the importance of art and play. Here she pushes them into a more overtly dystopian world, one that still leaves room for sudden kindness and for glancing, gliff like moments when a different future seems possible.

For now there is only one book in the Gliff cycle, so the reading order is simple. This background is here to help you understand the premise, tone and stakes before you start, not to spoil the plot. Expect a story that moves quickly, asks hard questions and still finds room for flashes of joy.