What role do humans play in a world where artificial intelligence has replaced most of the workforce?
Technological advancements don't seem to have improved daily living for the characters in Helen Phillips’ slightly futuristic novel Hum.
Air quality forces families indoors where children watch videos of animals they will only ever encounter at pop-up zoos with conditions so abysmal they scare the visitors. Constant video surveillance produces targeted advertisements and androids called hums replace human workers while families struggle to pay for basic necessities.
Hum centers around May, a mother of two who loses her job to artificial intelligence and undergoes an experimental procedure that distorts her features to evade facial recognition software in order to pay for for her family's living expenses.
Feeling friendless and disconnected from her husband, worried about finances and her children's increasing tech-dominated isolation, May spends part of her earnings treating her family to a visit to the luxurious Botanical Garden where they can reconnect and experience a convincing approximation of the natural world.
The garden’s lush environment offers a refreshing change of pace until the children wander off, setting into motion a chain of events that threatens the whole family.
I've been a fan of Helen Phillips' unique human-centered science fiction since reading her 2015 novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat which was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
In Phillips' suspenseful and mind-bending 2019 novel The Need, a woman is confronted by an alternative version of herself. The Need was named a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the National Book Award.
FCPL’s Novel Realities book club will discuss Hum on Tuesday, October 14 at 7 p.m. at the Sharon Forks Library and newcomers are always welcome. If you enjoy speculative fiction and are looking a unique book club, please take a look at our upcoming Novel Realities book selections and make plans to attend one of our upcoming discussions.
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| Image by wweagle from Getty Images Signature via Canva |
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