“Missing Helen” by Tia Tashiro in Clarkesworld, Issue 226, July 2025 by Tia Tashiro Narrator: Kate Baker
Format: ebook, podcast
Source: podcast, supplied by publisher via Hugo Packet
Formats available: magazine, podcast
Genres: science fiction, short stories
Series: Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 226 July 2025
Pages: 15
Length: 37 minutes
Published by Clarkesworld Magazine on July 11, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads
Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction, articles, interviews and art. Our July 2025 issue (#226) contains:
Fiction
"Missing Helen" by Tia Tashiro
"The Walled Garden" by Fiona Moore
"Welcome to Kearney" by Gary Kloster
"Serpent Carriers" by K.A. Teryna
"Bits and Pieces on This Floor" by Eric Del Carlo
"A Land Called Folly" by Amal Singh
"Hunter Harvester" by Bam Bruin
Non-Fiction"Wilderness Resurrection and Compromise" by Priya Sridhar
"Who Owns A Story: An Interview with Allison King" by Arley Sorg
"Diverse Bodies: A Conversation with Annalee Newitz" by Arley Sorg
"Editor''s Desk: Taking a Moment to Smell the Roses" by Neil Clarke
Cover Art"Alone" by Matt Dixon
My Review:
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.
