Hum

WINNER OF THE CLIMATE FICTION PRIZE 2026
'Ingenious and unsettling' Observer
'This sleek ride of a novel further cements Phillips's position as one of our most profound writers of speculative fiction.' New York Times
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.

Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including The Need, a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and the Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction. She is an associate professor at Brooklyn College.