Hum

The thrilling, feminist speculative novel

By: Helen Phillips

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Paperback | 2 December 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
272 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.8 x 12.9 x 1.9

Paperback

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From critically acclaimed, prize-winning author Helen Phillips comes an urgent, compelling and deeply human novel that asks: how do we raise our children for a future that is unknown, that we can't see ourselves?

'Ingenious' Observer
'Mesmerising' Guardian
'Gripping' Daily Mail

In a hot and gritty city populated by super-intelligent robots called 'Hums', May seeks some reprieve from recent hardships and from her family's addiction to their devices. She splurges on a weekend away at the Botanical Garden - a rare, green refuge in the heart of the city, where forests, streams and animals flourish. But when it becomes clear that the Garden is not the idyll she hoped it would be, and her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a Hum of uncertain motives in order to restore the life of her family.

Gripping and unflinching, Hum is about our most cherished human relationships in a world compromised by climate change and dizzying technological revolution, a world with both dystopian and utopian possibilities.

Industry Reviews

'What's more intoxicating than a Helen Phillips novel? Her books have blown open the doors of what's possible with the art of storytelling - and her latest, Hum, is her best work yet: one that captures, with fire and grace, our future and what it means to love, to persist, and to be human. This is a hold-your-breath book. Buckle up and get ready to deeply feel the joy - the thrill, the magic - of reading.' - Paul Yoon

'An indelible family portrait and a narrative tour de force, Hum generates almost unbearable tension and unease from start to end. Stunning, strangely beautiful, and written from a place of deep compassion but also with a clear and analytical eye. Helen Phillips, in typical bravura fashion, has found a way to make visible uncomfortable truths about our present by interrogating the near-future. I loved it.' - Jeff VanderMeer

'A transcendent portrayal of artificial intelligence, love, the fate of families, and the emergence of synthetic beings beyond human imagination.' - Clifford A. Pickover, author of Artificial Intelligence: An Illustrated History

'An extraordinary and dazzlingly original work from one of our most gifted and interesting writers' - Emily St. John Mandel on THE NEED

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