As we’re trying to see our way out of the pandemic, The Seep proves a timely read. It’s a story about social transformation brought about by an alien entity The Seep, which seeks to ameliorate human suffering—poverty; sexual & gender as well as racial and ethnic discrimination; death—in exchange for information about what makes humans “human.” Which begs the question, if our struggles & complexities are eliminated in a utopia, can we still call ourselves human?