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Missing Helen
2026 Hugo Awards Voter Packet.
15 pages, ebook
Published May 6, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 2, 2026
2026 Hugo Short Story finalists
Here are the finalists for the 2026 Best Short Story Hugo Award, with my rankings:
1. ★★★☆☆ 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills
2. ★★★☆☆ Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson
3. ★★★☆☆ Wire Mother, Isabel J. Kim
4. ★★★☆☆ Missing Helen, Tia Tashiro
5. ★★★☆☆ Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Effie Seiberg
6. ★★☆☆☆ In My Country, Thomas Ha
I apologize: I'm gonna do a half-assed job of reviewing these. It was, IMO, a lack-luster harvest. What I always hope for when I read the Hugo finalists is something that makes me say, "I sure am glad the Hugo nomination process pointed me at that story!" This year, 2026, that happened in the series, novel, novella, and novelette categories. It didn't happened for a short story. (I have not yet read the poetry finalists -- the only remaining category in which I plan to vote.)
I have one complaint for all the short stories: they aren't. Stories that is. They are written English documents that have the form of stories, but not the essence. Everyone knows the famous but unhelpful dictum from Aristotle's Poetics that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end (usefully modified by Jean Luc Godard, "not necessarily in that order") Unhelpful though Aristotle is, the point on which he fails to put his finger is a good one: a story has a structure, not just of words, but also of events and emotions. I would summarize it as, "a problem should be resolved."
It's not that that doesn't happen in any of these stories -- it's just that it feels perfunctory, as if that isn't what the story is about. Several of them are more like thinly disguised polemics than stories. I'd put Six People to Revise You, Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Wire Mother, and probably In My Country in that category. ("Probably" because I didn't understand In My Country.) Missing Helen was more storyish, but it was just not, IMO, a very good story.
10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days is a series of ten very short stories about a Lovecraftian end to the world. So there was some story-ness to it, quite possibly more than I understood. Also, it was funny. I chuckled several times.
So, there you have it. Better luck next year!
Blog review.
Here are the finalists for the 2026 Best Short Story Hugo Award, with my rankings:
1. ★★★☆☆ 10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days, Samantha Mills
2. ★★★☆☆ Six People to Revise You, J. R. Dawson
3. ★★★☆☆ Wire Mother, Isabel J. Kim
4. ★★★☆☆ Missing Helen, Tia Tashiro
5. ★★★☆☆ Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Effie Seiberg
6. ★★☆☆☆ In My Country, Thomas Ha
I apologize: I'm gonna do a half-assed job of reviewing these. It was, IMO, a lack-luster harvest. What I always hope for when I read the Hugo finalists is something that makes me say, "I sure am glad the Hugo nomination process pointed me at that story!" This year, 2026, that happened in the series, novel, novella, and novelette categories. It didn't happened for a short story. (I have not yet read the poetry finalists -- the only remaining category in which I plan to vote.)
I have one complaint for all the short stories: they aren't. Stories that is. They are written English documents that have the form of stories, but not the essence. Everyone knows the famous but unhelpful dictum from Aristotle's Poetics that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end (usefully modified by Jean Luc Godard, "not necessarily in that order") Unhelpful though Aristotle is, the point on which he fails to put his finger is a good one: a story has a structure, not just of words, but also of events and emotions. I would summarize it as, "a problem should be resolved."
It's not that that doesn't happen in any of these stories -- it's just that it feels perfunctory, as if that isn't what the story is about. Several of them are more like thinly disguised polemics than stories. I'd put Six People to Revise You, Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Wire Mother, and probably In My Country in that category. ("Probably" because I didn't understand In My Country.) Missing Helen was more storyish, but it was just not, IMO, a very good story.
10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days is a series of ten very short stories about a Lovecraftian end to the world. So there was some story-ness to it, quite possibly more than I understood. Also, it was funny. I chuckled several times.
So, there you have it. Better luck next year!
Blog review.
July 11, 2026
2026 Hugo Award finalist - Best Short Story
Helen and Mark get divorced. Sometime later, Mark tells Helen that he is engaged to her clone, Elaine, 16 years younger. Helen eventually meets Elaine. What will the ultimate outcome be? The story is ambiguous about it. It’s an interesting extrapolation of genetic and social sciences with the poignancy of falling into and out of love.
Helen and Mark get divorced. Sometime later, Mark tells Helen that he is engaged to her clone, Elaine, 16 years younger. Helen eventually meets Elaine. What will the ultimate outcome be? The story is ambiguous about it. It’s an interesting extrapolation of genetic and social sciences with the poignancy of falling into and out of love.
July 18, 2026
Oh, this was actually surprising. And the voice/POV was quite well-done, and did interesting things with unreliability.
May 20, 2026
I don't tend to write reviews for short stories, but I'm trying to write more generally, so here you are!
This is set in a time where you can get paid for donating some of your genetic material and releasing the rights to a *clone* of you. When you donate this way, you release the rights, but also you aren't supposed to try to contact your clone, and this story gives us a glimpse into an odd situation where our main character meets her clone when she's reached adulthood. I'm not sure I want to tell any more, but even that premise is rather interesting.
For now, you can read it on Clarkesworld for free! clarkesworldmagazine.com/tashiro_07_25/
This is set in a time where you can get paid for donating some of your genetic material and releasing the rights to a *clone* of you. When you donate this way, you release the rights, but also you aren't supposed to try to contact your clone, and this story gives us a glimpse into an odd situation where our main character meets her clone when she's reached adulthood. I'm not sure I want to tell any more, but even that premise is rather interesting.
For now, you can read it on Clarkesworld for free! clarkesworldmagazine.com/tashiro_07_25/
May 12, 2026
3/5
Hmm not sure what to feel about this one. It made me uncomfortable but at the same time I was intrigued. I'm not a fan of this kind of topics though.
Hmm not sure what to feel about this one. It made me uncomfortable but at the same time I was intrigued. I'm not a fan of this kind of topics though.
July 19, 2026
Is this Helen talking about Elaine, or Elaine talking about Helen, or both of them observing Mark from a supposedly objective perspective? Is it all of the above? Or is it just narcissism all the way around?
If that’s a bit confusing, that’s fair, because that’s the way this story left me. Confused. Also entirely certain about the narcissism under the literary trickery – and maybe that was the point.
As I keep saying in these Hugo readings, the shorter works this year have been more interesting and/or clever and/or thought-provoking than they are fun. “Kaiju Agonistes” in the novelette category is standing out more and more, as it is both thought-provoking AND fun – which doesn’t seem to have been what this year’s nominators were going for AT ALL. Dammit.
Let me back up a bit. The idea of “Missing Helen” is very SFnal. This story is set in a future where human cloning is feasible, successful, and so far seems to be successfully regulated so things don’t get too weird. (There’s already plenty of SF about runaway human cloning for nefarious purposes, but this isn’t that. Which is good because that’s been DONE. The Heist of Hollow London did it well and went to more places than just the cloning if you’re curious).
This is more about the human issues of cloning – not the scientific issues, the social and psychological issues. Which is also where narcissism comes in.
Helen sold her cloning rights as soon as she was legally able to do so. She needed the money to fund a future better than her “original” life would have allowed her. As that original life was uncertain, chaotic and poor (it’s never stated but her parents were either addicts or abusive or both). Helen wants a better start for her “other self” and needs money for education to catch a rung on the ladder of training and self-sufficiency.
But it’s left her with a whole host of emotional baggage – insecurities, control issues, paranoia, fear of abandonment, etc., etc., etc. Anxieties that lead to the break up of her marriage – because she needs to leave before she gets left.
Which is where her clone comes in. And Helen’s ex-husband Mark gets engaged to Helen’s alternate self, Elaine. It’s not just trading his middle-aged wife in for a younger model, but that Elaine is a younger model without the terrible baggage that Helen carried which destroyed their marriage.
It all sounds icky and squicky and it kind of is. But Mark isn’t the story. It’s not his story. He’s just the vehicle that allows Helen and Elaine to finally meet. To see each other through a mirror, however darkly, and realize that they are all they either want or need.
Escape Rating C: This one didn’t work for me. Obviously. It’s trying to be clever about using second person perspective, as though Helen and Elaine are describing each other to themselves AND each other, and it ended up being more clever than interesting. A trick that didn’t land, at least not for this reader. (As always, your reading mileage may vary.)
So far in my Hugo readings in the Short Story category, “Missing Helen” is the fourth of six, and it’s my least favorite, with “In My Country” still leading the pack for me. Two more, “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” and “10 Visions of the Future” to go.
Originally published at Reading Reality
If that’s a bit confusing, that’s fair, because that’s the way this story left me. Confused. Also entirely certain about the narcissism under the literary trickery – and maybe that was the point.
As I keep saying in these Hugo readings, the shorter works this year have been more interesting and/or clever and/or thought-provoking than they are fun. “Kaiju Agonistes” in the novelette category is standing out more and more, as it is both thought-provoking AND fun – which doesn’t seem to have been what this year’s nominators were going for AT ALL. Dammit.
Let me back up a bit. The idea of “Missing Helen” is very SFnal. This story is set in a future where human cloning is feasible, successful, and so far seems to be successfully regulated so things don’t get too weird. (There’s already plenty of SF about runaway human cloning for nefarious purposes, but this isn’t that. Which is good because that’s been DONE. The Heist of Hollow London did it well and went to more places than just the cloning if you’re curious).
This is more about the human issues of cloning – not the scientific issues, the social and psychological issues. Which is also where narcissism comes in.
Helen sold her cloning rights as soon as she was legally able to do so. She needed the money to fund a future better than her “original” life would have allowed her. As that original life was uncertain, chaotic and poor (it’s never stated but her parents were either addicts or abusive or both). Helen wants a better start for her “other self” and needs money for education to catch a rung on the ladder of training and self-sufficiency.
But it’s left her with a whole host of emotional baggage – insecurities, control issues, paranoia, fear of abandonment, etc., etc., etc. Anxieties that lead to the break up of her marriage – because she needs to leave before she gets left.
Which is where her clone comes in. And Helen’s ex-husband Mark gets engaged to Helen’s alternate self, Elaine. It’s not just trading his middle-aged wife in for a younger model, but that Elaine is a younger model without the terrible baggage that Helen carried which destroyed their marriage.
It all sounds icky and squicky and it kind of is. But Mark isn’t the story. It’s not his story. He’s just the vehicle that allows Helen and Elaine to finally meet. To see each other through a mirror, however darkly, and realize that they are all they either want or need.
Escape Rating C: This one didn’t work for me. Obviously. It’s trying to be clever about using second person perspective, as though Helen and Elaine are describing each other to themselves AND each other, and it ended up being more clever than interesting. A trick that didn’t land, at least not for this reader. (As always, your reading mileage may vary.)
So far in my Hugo readings in the Short Story category, “Missing Helen” is the fourth of six, and it’s my least favorite, with “In My Country” still leading the pack for me. Two more, “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything” and “10 Visions of the Future” to go.
Originally published at Reading Reality
May 31, 2026
This review is for Missing Helen by Tia Tashiro (goodreads often groups together stories that appears in anthologies).
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Short Story category. I had not previously read anything by this author, hence I was looking forward to discovering something new. I was not disappointed.
Years ago, a young woman sold her genetic material to fund an escape from a traumatic upbringing. Now, long after the dust has settled on her subsequent marriage and ultimate divorce, she receives a startling piece of news: her ex-husband intends to marry her clone. Told through a striking second-person narration, Missing Helen is a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and the deeply tangled roots of nature versus nurture. As the protagonist reflects on the highs and lows of her failed relationship, the narrative beautifully charts the differences between the woman she became and the younger duplicate shaped by an entirely different world. Far from a conventional sci-fi trope, Tia Tashiro delivers a deeply intimate, beautifully written, and grounded story about the anatomy of love and the pieces of ourselves we leave behind.
Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This story is a finalist in the Short Story category. I had not previously read anything by this author, hence I was looking forward to discovering something new. I was not disappointed.
Years ago, a young woman sold her genetic material to fund an escape from a traumatic upbringing. Now, long after the dust has settled on her subsequent marriage and ultimate divorce, she receives a startling piece of news: her ex-husband intends to marry her clone. Told through a striking second-person narration, Missing Helen is a poignant exploration of identity, memory, and the deeply tangled roots of nature versus nurture. As the protagonist reflects on the highs and lows of her failed relationship, the narrative beautifully charts the differences between the woman she became and the younger duplicate shaped by an entirely different world. Far from a conventional sci-fi trope, Tia Tashiro delivers a deeply intimate, beautifully written, and grounded story about the anatomy of love and the pieces of ourselves we leave behind.
July 2, 2026
Well written story about a woman whose husband leaves her for her clone. So she attempts to meet her to explain that she sold her cloning rights away because she needed the money when she ran away from home as a teen. She doesn’t know what to expect, but hopes to ease the pain of the divorce. The kicker in this book is that it’s told in second person and the wife is the “you” in the story. The ending had WOW factor.
Come visit my blog for all the short story nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
Come visit my blog for all the short story nominees…
It Started With The Hugos
June 8, 2026
A finalist for the Best Short Story Hugo Award 2026.
The 'one SF thing' here is the ability of anyone to make their genetic material available for cloning, and be paid for seling it. Helen makes this decision because she needs the money. There are restrictions on donors contacting their clones. Helen goes on with her life, aware that somewhere her clone lives their life, but not obsessing over this fact of her life and choices.
Until her ex-husband advises her that he is engaged to her clone. Eeew.
This goes in a direction I'd not anticipated, and was written with great skill. Enjoyable.
The 'one SF thing' here is the ability of anyone to make their genetic material available for cloning, and be paid for seling it. Helen makes this decision because she needs the money. There are restrictions on donors contacting their clones. Helen goes on with her life, aware that somewhere her clone lives their life, but not obsessing over this fact of her life and choices.
Until her ex-husband advises her that he is engaged to her clone. Eeew.
This goes in a direction I'd not anticipated, and was written with great skill. Enjoyable.
June 1, 2026
My notes for voting in Hugos: interesting take on cloning. Acknowledges the clone is not the original, does not have the same life experiences, share DNA only, but that some personality traits may be carried over.
June 12, 2026
I appreciated this (hugo nominated) short story. I also appreciate the ending, although I personally did not view this as highly as some of the other nominations. That said, I am glad to have read these and will be thinking about them in the future.
June 30, 2026
What if your ex married your clone? And what if this story was emotionally complex while getting into nature versus nurture, relationships and their ends, aging, and getting to know yourself (or your clone, as the case may be)? Great stuff!
July 1, 2026
Read for the 2026 Hugos
An interesting and original take on cloning. It's also told from a very unusual, and only slightly confusing, point of view. I can understand, I think, why people like it, but it just didn't quite have the emotional hit that I like from short fiction.
An interesting and original take on cloning. It's also told from a very unusual, and only slightly confusing, point of view. I can understand, I think, why people like it, but it just didn't quite have the emotional hit that I like from short fiction.
May 17, 2026
Not exactly my vein of fiction, but very good. Good enough I immediately went through the rest of her short fiction available On Clarkesworld.com.
June 12, 2026
This was really really good. Absolutely made me cry. I wouldn't be mad at all if it won the Hugo.
July 19, 2026
Read for 2026 Hugos
What happens when a woman's husband divorces her for her younger clone? An interested take on how we look at ourselves.
What happens when a woman's husband divorces her for her younger clone? An interested take on how we look at ourselves.
May 17, 2026
Review to come:
Intrigued? Read this 2026 Hugo & Locus Short Story Finalist here:
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/tash...
When Mark told you he was marrying your clone, you said “congratulations” on autopilot, because that’s what you say when your friend tells you they’re getting married, and you had promised to stay friendly after the divorce.
Intrigued? Read this 2026 Hugo & Locus Short Story Finalist here:
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/tash...
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