Novel Realities Book Discussion October 14 at Sharon Forks Library: Hum by Helen Phillips

 

Hum by Helen Phillips

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 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.  

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist

Image by wweagle from Getty Images Signature via Canva

Staff Picks: In The Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

In the Lives of the Puppets is a postmodern retelling of the story of Pinocchio that raises timely questions about artificial intelligence and human compassion.  

T.J. Klune’s version of the classic tale takes place in a post-human world inhabited by robots of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments. A fatherly artificial human named Gio uses his engineering skills to create a fairy-tale homestead in the forest where he raises an orphaned human as his son. While Gio spends his time in his shop, his son Victor and two companions—Nurse Ratched (Nurse Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill) and a sentient Roomba named Rambo—discover a partially destroyed robot named Hap. More curious than cautious, Young Victor restores Hap’s functionality, only to realize too late that his newest companion is a HARP (Human Annihilation Response Protocol).  

One of my favorite passages in In the Lives of Puppets comes from Rambo the vacuum.    

I know it seems hard, but we have to be brave. Your brain is telling you that you can’t, but you don’t always have to listen to it. Sometimes it tells you white lies.  I know it does to me. It says, “No, you won’t make it because you’ll die a horribly painful death where your entire body will be crushed and all of your innards will fall out." 

Staff Picks: The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum - Adult Fiction

 

The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum

When you get stuck in traffic or caught in a storm, is it fate, chance, or something else? 

In Yoav Blum’s The Coincidence Makers, missed buses, lost luggage, and chance encounters are often the result of covert manipulations performed by coincidence makers assigned to secretly steer societies and individual destinies. 

The novel focuses on a team of new operators who are still learning the ropes on setting events in motion to influence individuals to fall in love, switch careers, or find inspiration.  But not all coincidences are so benevolent and even the coincidence makers can become subjects of manipulation. 

Creepy Stories for Fans of The Twilight Zone

Fans of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone will enjoy these creepy stories that veer into uncharted territory. 

Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin

In a small and isolated community with a fairy-tale setting, women’s lives follow predictable patterns: starting school, forming friendships, dating, marrying, having children, and sometimes vanishing without a trace. One motherless girl's initial fascination with a visitor turns to suspicion when the stranger starts to question the town's rituals. Elsewhere is a haunting and profound fable of motherhood, loss, and isolation. 

Staff Picks The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

 

The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull

In Cadwell Turnbull’s 2019 science fiction novel, The Lesson, a sophisticated alien ship appears in the skies over Water Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Ynaa bring promising technological and medical advancements to Earth while agreeing to confine themselves to the Caribbean island. While the majority of Earth's people benefit from contact with the alien species, living alongside the Ynaa radically alters the lives of the islanders who experience the aliens' sudden violence firsthand and question the cryptic meaning behind their promise to depart once they’ve imparted an important lesson to the people of Earth. 

Staff Picks: Instinct by Jason M. Hough - Adult Fiction

Instinct by Jason M. Hough 

Silvertown, Washington is a small town with a big love of conspiracy theories. 

Silvertown’s newest resident, Officer Mary Whittaker, finds herself the only law official in town when the chief of police takes a leave of absence after the unusual and tragic death of a teenager. On Mary’s watch, the mountain town of only 602 sees a sudden and statistically improbable slew of accidents, near misses, and strange deaths. 

What’s causing Silvertown’s residents to act so strangely and forgo their own survival instincts?  Theories range from cell phone tower transmissions to alien mind control. Fans of television shows like Stranger Things and The X Files will enjoy reading about all the weird goings-on in this modern-day thriller.   

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist
#WeKnowBooks

 

Staff Picks Dune by Frank Herbert - Adult Fiction

Dune by Frank Herbert 

Dune's impressive world-building weaves together a spell-binding tale of political rivalry, futuristic technology, intellectual puppet masters with super-human mental abilities, and a harsh desert environment populated by primitive tribes and gigantic apex predators.  

For a science fiction fan like myself, one of the most fascinating concepts in the series involves the Space Guild and its navigators who transform physically and utilize the spice harvested on Arrakis to steer ships across the universe by folding space. Dune Messiah reveals the odd and fascinating career pathway of one such navigator.  I'm equally intrigued by the mysterious Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.  Learn more about mental powers, mind control, and the scheming ways of the Bene Gesserit in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune.  And fans of swordmaster Duncan Idaho will appreciate his appearances in each of Frank Herbert's original Dune books. 

The unlikely story behind the publication of this classic science fiction novel is one of the best Cinderella stories in science fiction. Dune was originally published as a serialized story in Analog Magazine but was a hard concept to sell to publishers in the 1960s. In fact, twenty publishers rejected it. It's all thanks to Chilton Books of Philadelphia, a publisher of business magazines and automotive manuals who took a chance on the book, that this epic story has been entertaining readers for generations.  

Alicia Cavitt
#WeKnowBooks

Information Specialist

Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.

                

Staff Picks: Science Fiction

I love classic science fiction stories so it thrills me to discover new books that explore the reoccurring storylines in surprising ways. Think you’ve heard every conceivable time travel scenario? Think again.

In Sean Ferrell’s Man in the Empty Suit the inventor of a time machine celebrates his birth with a visit to an abandoned hotel in a futuristic Manhattan-- just like he does every year.  Versions of himself at each age and in various states of intoxication make the festivities surreal and surprisingly antagonistic, especially when he discovers he won’t survive the next birthday party.

In this unusual mystery our time traveler is the victim and detective, plus all of the witnesses and most likely the killer. Sean Ferrell’s intriguing vision of a future Manhattan and the backstory of a mysterious actress who stands in as the daughter of a dying alcoholic are fascinating subplots within this unique story.

How might time travel transform daily life?  Author Charles Yu suspects the advance would tempt people to relive their worst moments and in How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe that’s precisely what the characters--one of them called Charles Yu—keep doing.

I really enjoy the wit and psychological aspects of this novel so I'll share some quotes. 

Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward.

Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience... It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter. 

In 2007 the National Book Foundation selected Charles Yu for the 5 Under 35 award and in 2010 How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe was runner up for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.  I can't help predicting we'll see more great stories from this author in the not too distant future.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist