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Wire Mother
2026 Hugo Awards Voter Packet.
9 pages, ebook
Published May 6, 2026
About the author
Isabel J. Kim
34 books194 followersIsabel J. Kim lives near New York City in an apartment filled with books and swords. She is the author of numerous short stories and has won the Nebula, Locus, BSFA and the Shirley Jackson Awards. Her work has been translated into multiple languages and reprinted in multiple best of the year anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s practicing law or podcasting. Find her at isabel.kim, @isabel.kim on Bluesky, or @isabeljkim on instagram.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 26, 2026
Nominated as a finalists for 2026 Hugo awards for short story.
First, all 6 of this year’s stories are wonderful. Each with a different message; and yet all similar in one way. Our world is hard, ugly, and sometimes unbearable. Yet what makes it ours and unique is being human. And thus I have to pick to vote for Wire Mother by Isabel J. Kim.
Wire Mother is this year’s story that pushes me closer to a topic I’ve been dreading and yet I know I must come to terms with sooner rather than later...
Just this year I started using AI a bit for work. I refuse to type to it like a person. I am analytical, factual, and never say thank you to it. Why? Because it’s not a real person.
Being polite to AI will not change its sentiment or answers to me. And yet… sometimes I’m so grateful for the help AI gives me in debugging code at my day job that I feel compelled to say thanks. It’s a weird, bizarre struggle.
Thus, Wire Mother spoke to me in a way the other stories did not. In a way that made me realize if I had the choice, given to our teen in this story; I’d make the same one as her. I cannot tell you what that is as it’s a spoiler. All I can say is go and read this amazing little futuristic story. Be impressed by the narrative and detail put into so few words; and be shocked by the ending that is absolutely perfect to me.
Wire Mother is easily my top pick for this year’s Short story entry for the Hugo Awards.
First, all 6 of this year’s stories are wonderful. Each with a different message; and yet all similar in one way. Our world is hard, ugly, and sometimes unbearable. Yet what makes it ours and unique is being human. And thus I have to pick to vote for Wire Mother by Isabel J. Kim.
Wire Mother is this year’s story that pushes me closer to a topic I’ve been dreading and yet I know I must come to terms with sooner rather than later...
Just this year I started using AI a bit for work. I refuse to type to it like a person. I am analytical, factual, and never say thank you to it. Why? Because it’s not a real person.
Being polite to AI will not change its sentiment or answers to me. And yet… sometimes I’m so grateful for the help AI gives me in debugging code at my day job that I feel compelled to say thanks. It’s a weird, bizarre struggle.
Thus, Wire Mother spoke to me in a way the other stories did not. In a way that made me realize if I had the choice, given to our teen in this story; I’d make the same one as her. I cannot tell you what that is as it’s a spoiler. All I can say is go and read this amazing little futuristic story. Be impressed by the narrative and detail put into so few words; and be shocked by the ending that is absolutely perfect to me.
Wire Mother is easily my top pick for this year’s Short story entry for the Hugo Awards.
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 4, 2026
Cassie does not get along with her mother. She’s not thrilled with her dad when the story begins, either. Then again, she’s a teenager and those attitudes are not that uncommon. Which is why there are plenty of jokes about how much our parents learn between our ages of 17 and 21 or thereabouts. Not because they learn stuff, but because we start seeing the world as it really is.
But Cassie’s particular issues with “the ‘rents” aren’t about the usual things. Or at least not about our usual things – although we’re getting there faster than we like to think.
Cassie’s issue with her mother is that her mother isn’t really her mother. Well, not her biological mother. Not because Cassie is adopted or her parents used a surrogate or whatever you might be thinking of. Cassie’s mother isn’t really her mother in the biological sense because Cassie’s mother isn’t a biological entity. She’s a digital person that her dad created to his specifications.
Or, as Cassie refers to her, a ‘wife simulacra’.
Cassie’s not alone in having a digital person for a parent. But she is singular among her peers for having been diagnosed with Emotional Contagion Deficit or ECD. Cassie can’t emotionally connect with digital people as people. In other words, she doesn’t love her mother because her mother is a collection of ones and zeros and binary programming, and Cassie is unable to lose her awareness of that to accept her mother as a person.
So when one of her few friends turns her own diagnosis against her, and she learns one of those painful lessons about adulthood that we wish we could turn to our parents for even if we don’t, Cassie decides to make her reality real for everyone around her. Whether because she’s lashing out, because she’s certain she’s the only keeper of the truth, or because misery demands company.
We don’t know, and neither does she.
Escape Rating B: This, like many of the shorter works in my Hugo Awards reading, was both a thoughtful and an uncomfortable read. And not just in the ways that were obvious on the page. Or in listening to the podcast (read well as usual by Kate Baker) which is how I experienced the story.
Because it’s not just about Cassie’s uncomfortable situation – although that was plenty. She is rebelling in what seems like a typical teenage way – until the story reveals that she really isn’t.
In science fiction, we often not merely accept, but outright enjoy and even empathize with AI characters. The central characters of Emergent Properties and the recent Ode to the Half-Broken are both artificial intelligences and we accept them as persons in their own right and feel for them when their rights are threatened because they are AI.
So it’s a bit uncomfortable reading/listening to “Wire Mother” from Cassie’s point of view because AMY the digital person isn’t just not the mother Cassie wishes she was, but she’s not her mother. And we feel that too, that the digital person in the box can’t really be her mother no matter what Cassie is told because that’s just not what mothers are. Or because we’re still cognizant that digital personas aren’t ‘real people’. Siri and Alexa may be terribly helpful but they’re not actual persons – at least not yet.
And then, on my other, digital hand, there’s the place where the concept of ‘wire mothers’ came from, not in science fiction but in actual science. It was part of a psychology experiment in the 1930s with infant rhesus monkeys using mother-shaped figures made out of wire to study the monkeys’ reactions to fear and whether they could derive comfort from a mother-shaped object if they were raised with it. It’s all pretty horrific both for the actual research methods and the way it was used to study questions about attachment and isolation and social deprivation that were applied to human children as well.
It’s clear that THIS Hugo nominated short story is related to those experiments. If only to stand all the concepts on their tiny little heads. This is an uncomfortable story, as many of this year’s nominees in the short works categories are, and it is also in dialogue with the past as the author’s Hugo nominated story from 2025, “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” was. Although that was in dialogue with science fiction of the past, while this one is in dialogue with real science of the past. (The picture at right is a ‘wire mother’ with its baby and it’s still heartbreaking. If you’re curious, check out this entry in Wikipedia.)
What makes this story relevant for TODAY is that it turns the study about ‘wire mothers’ and infant/maternal attachment on its head by introducing AI and 21st century (possibly even later) into the mix and centering the story around a teenaged girl who can’t attach to the future’s version of a ‘wire mother’ because she’s old enough and logical enough to know that it’s not real.
Cassidy can’t make herself feel what her society has decided are the “right” feelings for digital people. Because a digital mother can’t give her a hug without using a body surrogate – which is a whole other bundle of wrongness. Because she’s a programmer and she knows what goes into creating a digital person and she knows that programming can’t create a real person.
And that just because her dad is in love with the wife simulacra that he created to his own specifications – it does not mean that the program loves him back. Or that it’s capable of loving anyone, even its own daughter, at all. Or that Cassie can close off the truth of her own mind to let herself believe that it does. Even when she wishes she could.
Originally published at Reading Reality
But Cassie’s particular issues with “the ‘rents” aren’t about the usual things. Or at least not about our usual things – although we’re getting there faster than we like to think.
Cassie’s issue with her mother is that her mother isn’t really her mother. Well, not her biological mother. Not because Cassie is adopted or her parents used a surrogate or whatever you might be thinking of. Cassie’s mother isn’t really her mother in the biological sense because Cassie’s mother isn’t a biological entity. She’s a digital person that her dad created to his specifications.
Or, as Cassie refers to her, a ‘wife simulacra’.
Cassie’s not alone in having a digital person for a parent. But she is singular among her peers for having been diagnosed with Emotional Contagion Deficit or ECD. Cassie can’t emotionally connect with digital people as people. In other words, she doesn’t love her mother because her mother is a collection of ones and zeros and binary programming, and Cassie is unable to lose her awareness of that to accept her mother as a person.
So when one of her few friends turns her own diagnosis against her, and she learns one of those painful lessons about adulthood that we wish we could turn to our parents for even if we don’t, Cassie decides to make her reality real for everyone around her. Whether because she’s lashing out, because she’s certain she’s the only keeper of the truth, or because misery demands company.
We don’t know, and neither does she.
Escape Rating B: This, like many of the shorter works in my Hugo Awards reading, was both a thoughtful and an uncomfortable read. And not just in the ways that were obvious on the page. Or in listening to the podcast (read well as usual by Kate Baker) which is how I experienced the story.
Because it’s not just about Cassie’s uncomfortable situation – although that was plenty. She is rebelling in what seems like a typical teenage way – until the story reveals that she really isn’t.
In science fiction, we often not merely accept, but outright enjoy and even empathize with AI characters. The central characters of Emergent Properties and the recent Ode to the Half-Broken are both artificial intelligences and we accept them as persons in their own right and feel for them when their rights are threatened because they are AI.
So it’s a bit uncomfortable reading/listening to “Wire Mother” from Cassie’s point of view because AMY the digital person isn’t just not the mother Cassie wishes she was, but she’s not her mother. And we feel that too, that the digital person in the box can’t really be her mother no matter what Cassie is told because that’s just not what mothers are. Or because we’re still cognizant that digital personas aren’t ‘real people’. Siri and Alexa may be terribly helpful but they’re not actual persons – at least not yet.
And then, on my other, digital hand, there’s the place where the concept of ‘wire mothers’ came from, not in science fiction but in actual science. It was part of a psychology experiment in the 1930s with infant rhesus monkeys using mother-shaped figures made out of wire to study the monkeys’ reactions to fear and whether they could derive comfort from a mother-shaped object if they were raised with it. It’s all pretty horrific both for the actual research methods and the way it was used to study questions about attachment and isolation and social deprivation that were applied to human children as well.
It’s clear that THIS Hugo nominated short story is related to those experiments. If only to stand all the concepts on their tiny little heads. This is an uncomfortable story, as many of this year’s nominees in the short works categories are, and it is also in dialogue with the past as the author’s Hugo nominated story from 2025, “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” was. Although that was in dialogue with science fiction of the past, while this one is in dialogue with real science of the past. (The picture at right is a ‘wire mother’ with its baby and it’s still heartbreaking. If you’re curious, check out this entry in Wikipedia.)
What makes this story relevant for TODAY is that it turns the study about ‘wire mothers’ and infant/maternal attachment on its head by introducing AI and 21st century (possibly even later) into the mix and centering the story around a teenaged girl who can’t attach to the future’s version of a ‘wire mother’ because she’s old enough and logical enough to know that it’s not real.
Cassidy can’t make herself feel what her society has decided are the “right” feelings for digital people. Because a digital mother can’t give her a hug without using a body surrogate – which is a whole other bundle of wrongness. Because she’s a programmer and she knows what goes into creating a digital person and she knows that programming can’t create a real person.
And that just because her dad is in love with the wife simulacra that he created to his own specifications – it does not mean that the program loves him back. Or that it’s capable of loving anyone, even its own daughter, at all. Or that Cassie can close off the truth of her own mind to let herself believe that it does. Even when she wishes she could.
Originally published at Reading Reality
July 11, 2026
2026 Hugo Award finalist - Best Short Story
This is not a terribly nuanced story, basically, AI sucks and it’s only going to get worse. The story also touches on neurodiversity issues, as Cassie, the teenage protagonist, is self-diagnosed with Emotional Contagion Disorder (ECD), or the inability to distinguish AI or partial AI entities as people, which is a problem because the majority of the population is now digital, including her mother. Unfortunately, Cassie doesn’t have much more success interfacing with real humans, leading to a dark ending.
This is not a terribly nuanced story, basically, AI sucks and it’s only going to get worse. The story also touches on neurodiversity issues, as Cassie, the teenage protagonist, is self-diagnosed with Emotional Contagion Disorder (ECD), or the inability to distinguish AI or partial AI entities as people, which is a problem because the majority of the population is now digital, including her mother. Unfortunately, Cassie doesn’t have much more success interfacing with real humans, leading to a dark ending.
July 18, 2026
Ooh, thorny, not obvious, would lend itself to nice discussion.
June 1, 2026
My notes for Hugo voting: self-centered, petulant, angry child lashing out. Questions: what is the ramification for erasing a sentient construct and why was the code so easy to figure out?
July 29, 2026
This one was a blast to read, with a fun concept, engaging prose and interesting characters. When lots of stuff is being written about artificial intelligence and digital people it is really hard to sound original in this regard but Isabel shines through with making her story feel like natural and quite plausible compared to many.
This story is about Cassie, is set in far future and deals with her imaginary neuro divergent disorder making her incapable of accepting digital people as real. The story is told through her point of view and established the world around her slowly through her eyes while progressing to her inevitable rebellion against the norms of her society.
This was my first read from Isabel and this just clicked. The short yet poignant story left a sense of unease and desire to return to the setting. Maybe there are more stories to tell regarding Cassie or her world; only the author knows surely.
I will give this 4 out of 5 stars.
For more reviews and stuff check out my blog -
http://ihate00critics.blogspot.com/
This story is about Cassie, is set in far future and deals with her imaginary neuro divergent disorder making her incapable of accepting digital people as real. The story is told through her point of view and established the world around her slowly through her eyes while progressing to her inevitable rebellion against the norms of her society.
This was my first read from Isabel and this just clicked. The short yet poignant story left a sense of unease and desire to return to the setting. Maybe there are more stories to tell regarding Cassie or her world; only the author knows surely.
I will give this 4 out of 5 stars.
For more reviews and stuff check out my blog -
http://ihate00critics.blogspot.com/
July 2, 2026
“Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim – 5 stars – Cassie hates that 2/3 of the human population is digital, including her mother. In fact, most humans have virtual partners and use professional companions/hired humans with a digital overlay for tactile needs. Not being able to convince her father of her issues with her mother, she finds friendship with another human about her age at the community center, a computer whiz with a penchant for cruelty.
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 30, 2026
The main character has what people in the future consider a neurodivergence: she is incapable of recognizing that AI or partial AI entities are people. Are they people? Is she just a bigot? Is she a reflection of people such as myself who dislike AI here in 2026? Is she right? In the end, I'm not sure these questions are treated with the subtlety or nuance I like in my SF, but having read some of Kim's other stories, she is not one to pull punches. The ending would be fun to discuss, but I won't spoil it here.
July 30, 2026
Short story that's dense with meaning. It's about the lack of connection, ability to communicate, and difficulty forming meaningful relationships on your own terms that is felt by every teenager and every neurodivergent person. It's gotten worse with more tech, more time spent online, and now there's AI chatbots doing the communication for you and AI boy/girlfriends that match your wishes perfectly.
The story imagines a neurodivergent teen with a sentient AI mother in a future that seems dangerously close.
The story imagines a neurodivergent teen with a sentient AI mother in a future that seems dangerously close.
June 12, 2026
While I appreciate the ideas in this short story, and realize that the story had to end where it did, I did not feel as strongly about this as any of the other Hugo nominated short stories. It was still a good story but...
Then again, in the future, this story might be a good one to look back upon.
Then again, in the future, this story might be a good one to look back upon.
August 20, 2026
One of the more dystopic developments of the last few years is the revolting eagerness with which the common man is replacing human connection with premium agentic ai. Art, literature, music, online sex chats. What's next? Our friends? Our romantic partners? And when almost everyone you know is a robot built to please, how will you treat the few flesh and blood connections that remain?
August 29, 2026
Set in a future that feels closer than I’m comfortable with, this tells the story of Cassie and her difficulty connecting with her AI mother. On the surface this is a simple story about a teenager understanding her relationships, but it’s layered with questions about the relationship between humanity and technology.
May 14, 2026
2,5/5
Hmm what? I feel like the idea on this story has been a bit wasted. It could have been so much more powerful. I don't know, maybe I didn't get it but I'm disappointed.
Hmm what? I feel like the idea on this story has been a bit wasted. It could have been so much more powerful. I don't know, maybe I didn't get it but I'm disappointed.
May 20, 2026
A fantastic short story. A perfect mix of contemporary realist depiction and speculative projection. This is exactly the power good sci-fi holds and Kim wields it expertly.
July 19, 2026
Read for 2026 Hugos
What happens when virtual people are a part of everyday life and people have relationships with them. It's likely coming, and this is a cautioning take on it.
What happens when virtual people are a part of everyday life and people have relationships with them. It's likely coming, and this is a cautioning take on it.
August 1, 2026
Dark view of AI companions. Read for the Hugos Awards.
August 8, 2026
Morbid and creepifying. I can't say I liked it, but I appreciated it. Does a nice job of showing alienation and addiction, and the aftermath of trauma.
August 12, 2026
Interesting, enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews