{ "item_title" : "Hum", "item_author" : [" Helen Phillips "], "item_description" : "A Most Anticipated Book for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Goodreads, LitHub, and Book RiotA Best Book of the Summer for Esquire, Electric Lit, and Town & CountryA People Book of the Week From one of our most profound writers of speculative fiction (The New York Times), this tense dystopian thriller (Time) and tender portrait of love and care in an uncertain world (Esquire) is an urgent and unflinching portrayal of a woman's fight for her family's security in a world shaped by global warming and rapid technological progress. In a near-future world addled by climate change and inhabited by intelligent robots called hums, May loses her job to artificial intelligence. Desperate to resolve her family's debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance. Seeking reprieve from her recent hardships and her family's addiction to their devices, May splurges on passes for her family to spend three nights respite in the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals still thrive. But when her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives to save her family. Written with precision, insight, sensitivity, and compassion (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Hum is a striking new work of dystopian fiction (Vogue) that delves into the complexities of marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/66/800/883/1668008831_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "27.99", "online_price" : "27.99", "our_price" : "27.99", "club_price" : "27.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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When it comes to dystopian futures, author Helen Phillips hits the American zeitgeist jackpot in her sixth novel, Hum. Cancel culture, job displacement due to AI, government overreach, deteriorating middle class wealth, missing children, declining air quality, bad breakfast cereals . . . the future’s so dark, you gotta wear a miner’s helmet. In fiction, a trip out into nature almost always ends up with Job-like trials being visited upon the vacationers. Deliverance. 127 Hours. Jurassic Park. Into The Wild. Even Hansel and Gretel, for goodness’ sake. But despite these fictional precedents, when May makes a little extra money by submitting herself as a test subject for a surgical procedure that will disguise her features from the latest iteration of AI recognition software, she decides to take her family on vacation to the very expensive hyper-natural Botanical Garden. May hauls her two kids and her husband off into this Disney-fied paradise, requiring them, for good measure, to leave their phones and other communication devices at home so they can reap the full benefit of the experience. And reap it they do. The “hum” of the title is an AI-powered, jack-of-all-trades android, able to fill roles from a dental hygienist to a pop psychotherapist. If there was any question as to whether Phillips has seen 20 minutes into the future, in addition to dispensing whatever wisdom is appropriate to the moment, hums shill commercial products—unless you upgrade to the ad-free tier. Hum is, as dystopias go, reasonably breezy; it’s suitable for a coast-to-coast airline flight or an extended stay on the beach as an antidote to binge-watching the latest season of your favorite TV show. For those just dipping their toes into speculative fiction, the setting is relatable enough to not make you feel like (ahem) a stranger in a strange land.