Title: Hum
Author: Helen Phillips
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Release Date: August 6, 2024
 Price:  USD $27.99 Hardback / World £16.14

Cyberpunk and technological dystopias are a well-established tradition, having been around almost as long as science fiction has. Many of them captured growing fears about how technology might create a future harsher and more oppressive than the present. Hum, by Helen Phillips, follows in this tradition with a title that feels dystopian in a distinctly 2020s way.

Premise

Hum, by Helen Phillips, is a science fiction book published in 2024 about May, a wife and mother who lives in a world dominated by an AI-powered gig economy. The story starts with May, a beleaguered working mom, undergoing a procedure that widens her pupils to earn some extra cash. The procedure, she is told, will make her undetectable to surveillance cameras. Her husband Jem, and their two young children, Sy and Lu, find it uncanny, even if they won’t always say so. This extra money, May decides, though desperately needed to pay the bills in the next few months, might give them all a break from technology in their city’s botanical garden.

Story Analysis

Hum’s worldbuilding and view of technology is undoubtedly its greatest strength, even when it’s in the background. The economy is in shambles, and people need to take ever-rarer odd jobs to survive, such as the eye-opening surgery that May had in the first chapter. Her husband finds semi-stable work as a gig rat catcher, among other things. The majority of the work in the world is handled by Hums, the AI-namesake of the story., Rarely is a human interacted with in any kind of service manner in this setting. Everywhere one would expect a human staffer, a verbose, advertisement filled robot is there instead, offering unwanted products to purchase. Don’t worry, however. The ads can be blocked in fifteen-minute increments for a fee. May’s impulsive young kids latch onto whatever products these Hums pitch, making her life even harder.

Despite the premise of the book, this is a story about a family first and foremost. There is no rebellion or hint of revolution to this novel, at least not beyond May’s efforts to stave off technology’s conquest of her family. Those who are lured in by the anti-facial recognition procedure in the first few pages may be sorely disappointed. The story does little to alleviate these expectations in the early chapters, with details like how May and her husband’s children are named monosyllabically to slip them into conversations unnoticed by monitors and other people. But those who are interested in how a mom handles parenthood in an oppressive technological world may find more to enjoy.

There’s a term for near-future, realistic dystopias, ones that are miserable rather than calamitous places to live in. They’re called “Boring Dystopias” by some. While such stories impress with their realism, the boring part sets in eventually. May’s family circumstances are bad, but not in a way that’s too interesting to read about. The world’s most interesting elements are often in the background of the novel, with May’s mundane battle of reducing her family’s screen time put at the forefront. And unfortunately, the characters in the family are not all that interesting. May is the most sympathetic of them, but even she makes frustratingly bad financial decisions. Her husband comes across as bland and ineffectual. The characterization of the parents aligns with the tone of the story well, but it makes it hard to like them. The kids, on the other hand, are far worse. While surely realistic for their age, are often challenging to appreciate the way that May does. In other words, they are really, really irritating. The sweet moments with them are too few and far between, and they mostly come across as burdens. This is a huge kneecap to a novel about family. 

Final Score (3/5 Stars)

Hum’s greatest strength, by far, is its worldbuilding. The story is so horrifying because, even though it isn’t so bad as far as dystopias go, it is incredibly likely and still miserable to live through. The story is weighed down by a couple of factors, however. For one, its characters are rather dull or unlikeable at times. This, combined with the lack of deeper exploration of the setting itself, means the story lacks depth at times. Even so, its unique premise makes it a worthwhile read.

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