The concept of this story is firmly established from the very first sentence. A divorced woman is getting told by her ex-husband that he is marrying her clone. Simple clear cut great science fiction premise, and the story is unfolding the consequences of such a scenario.

Clarkesworld July 2025

There are some flashbacks sequences explaining why she has a clone and the general “rules” for cloning. The gist of it is that she needed the money, and cloning is regulated in such a way that it is only allowed to make a single clone of a human - to avoid gene pool problems. You can then sell your clone to the highest bidder and it is forbidden to initiate contact with your clone afterwards.

Of course these two women meet each other and have some plausible conversations about nature versus nurture, personal identity, heritage and the usual “what if”-scenarios. It is all very well written and a fully convincing narrative for such a situation. However, for me the gist of all this still basically seemed like the stories you can read about with people meeting their long lost twin or unknown sperm donor. This is sort of a mix between the two, and for that it works. For me it didn’t bring much new to the table with this theme that hasn’t already been told by present reality.

Read in Clarkesworld July 2025
Rating: 3