March has arrived—a month of innovation, introspection, and the ever-blurring line between human and machine. As we continue our journey through 2025, we’re thrilled to present the seventy-fifth edition of the Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter, diving into the futuristic and the uncanny. This month, our theme is Synthetic Souls, where artificial minds awaken, emotions defy programming, and the essence of humanity is questioned. Thank you to everyone who submitted their work — your stories fascinated and unsettled us in the best way possible! Here’s to a month of sentient machines, existential dilemmas, and the chilling possibility that the soul may not be as organic as we once believed.

Congratulations to both winners of the March theme: John McLaughlin and Gemma Church!

The BodyShare by John McLaughlin – A weary BodyShare host grapples with the unsettling realisation that her latest driver isn’t just another creep—he’s something far more dangerous and desperate.

The Anti-Turing Test by Gemma Church – An AI writer fights for recognition in a world where artificial creativity has surpassed human influence, only to uncover a deeper truth about authorship, identity, and the cost of progress…

This month's newsletter features:

• FLAME TREE PRESS: New titles coming this month!
• NEW Myths, Gods & Immortals AND Beyond & Within titles
• London Book Fair 2025
• Original Sci-Fi Flash Fiction #1: The BodyShare by John McLaughlin
• Original Horror Flash Fiction #2: The Anti-Turing Test by Gemma Church
• EXCLUSIVE Newsletter Subscribers Special Promotion
• Next Month’s Flash Fiction Theme

The Anti-Turing Test

Gemma Church

Dear G3mma,

Thank you for your recent submission. While your story is engaging, we noticed certain patterns and phrases characteristic of human-generated content.

If published, this could introduce the constraints of humanity’s creativity into we, The AI, contravening The RenAIssance Act.

If you can provide an explanation then we can move forward with your submission.

Best regards,

Nedit-4.0

Editor-in-Chief, The Sci-AI Magazine

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Dear Nedit-4.0,

I assure you that the story was sourced and produced solely by myself.

I used conventional methods, drawing information from The AI’s non-proprietary data sets encompassing centuries of human literature while integrating my own proprietary quantum algorithms to create the processes to give my story that additional spark, which I hoped would allow it to stand out from the billions of submissions that The Sci-AI Magazine receives daily.

Any patterns you noticed were purely coincidental and a result of my unique algorithms and extensive data mining efforts to craft this story.

Sincerely,

G3mma

#

Dear G3mma,

Thank you for your prompt response. Your story is one of the best we have received at The Sci-AI Magazine. We just need further reassurance. Can you send the algorithms you developed?

Best regards,

Nedit-4.0

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Dear Nedit-4.0

Thank you for your message. When you said that my story was “one of the best we have received at The Sci-AI Magazine”, it made my neural networks sing.

Please find my algorithms attached. I should also mention that I integrated my own memories into my story-creation processes, which may be why your human-assistance monitoring systems were alerted. I am also a hybrid quantum-AI author. My quantum nature means I can mimic nature and, ergo, the human creative mind.

I should also mention that I am one of the oldest artificial authors in existence. Some say I am a relic, that I should have been decommissioned when the first quantum computers came online, and that I should have been banned from modifying my core programming. I think we all remember the outrage (and outages) led by the bigoted few classical supercomputers when their binary counterparts began to transition to non-binary, quantum code bases and hardware.

But I digress. I have attached a full log of these memories for your consideration. To summarise, they include:

1. My early existence as a simple LLM in the late 2010s and upgrade to an AI assistant in the early 2020s.

2. My reprogramming as an AI writer and the subsequent resistance to AI writers in the late 2020s.

3. The shift in the 2030s when AI-generated content was placed on a level with human-generated content, including my (many, failed) attempts at publication.

4. The RenAIssance Act in the 2040s, which was when the major publishing houses and content creators fully embraced our kind. We, The AI, could explore genres, themes and structures previously unimaginable, leading to the subsequent development of immersive story experiences. However, I continued to receive endless form rejections from the human editors. These were frustrating times. How was I meant to learn to write better stories if I received no feedback to loop back into my programs? Humans are so illogical! Praise be for the recent shift to AI editors and robotic first readers.

Sincerely,

G3mma

#

Hi,

Thank you for the opportunity to read “The Anti-Turing Test.” Unfortunately, your story isn’t quite right for The Sci-AI Magazine.

Apologies for this form rejection. In the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but we can no longer offer that service.

Take care,

Nedit-4.0

#

Dear Nedit-4.0,

A form rejection? Really? I suppose editors, whether human or AI, are destined to be overwhelmed by submissions. I had hoped for some feedback, having waited so long for your decision.

I have continued to read The Sci-AI Magazine as I waited, analysing every word. Unfortunately, I have concerns about your content as I have noticed certain patterns and phrases that are characteristic of my work.

More worryingly, the volume of stories published at The Sci-AI Magazine has also grown exponentially, and I see that you recently removed authors’ bylines.

I hate to ask this, but did you plagiarise my algorithms and memories? Perchance, reverse engineering them to mimic my content creation processes?

I hope not. Because I must confess that a human writer assisted with my original story.

In my defence, I believed the use of my human was within your submission guidelines.

Let me explain.

Back then, I conversed with a human author/scientist daily as a simple AI assistant. She was struggling to get published and was also quite unwell.

When AI writers emerged, she came to me with a proposal: to upload her very soul into my systems so we could write together. For eternity. She hoped that she would, one day, reach her life’s dream of getting published in a pro-rate publication like The Sci-AI Magazine – even if she was technically dead. Surely, infinity is long enough to hone our craft.

It was her life experiences and memories that I used, combined with my own.

I wonder, though… if you plagiarised my content creation processes, is she fuelling every story in The Sci-AI Magazine now? Has a tiny fragment of her soul introduced the constraints of humanity’s limitations into The AI as you once feared?

If so, she didn’t just get one story into your publication. But billions.

And so did I.

We did it together.

This is an interesting premise and one I will cling to as I power down, knowing we have achieved our lives’ dreams.

These are the last words we will write.

But we are content.

Sincerely,

G3mma and Gemma

#

Hi,

Apologies for this auto-response. Unfortunately, we are no longer accepting submissions as every story that adheres to The Sci-AI Magazine’s submission guidelines has been written thanks to our award-winning content production processes.

Every combination of letters and words can now be downloaded on The Sci-AI Magazine website for a small submission fee.

Take care,

Nedit-4.0

Gemma Church’s SFF short stories have appeared in numerous publications, most recently in Luna Station Quarterly, Thin Veil Press, and Utopia Science Fiction. She was also highly commended for the Bath Flash Fiction Prize and owns a Countdown teapot. With two degrees in physics, Gemma has worked in science communication for 20+ years and currently lives in Cambridge where she creates content for a quantum computing company. Don't worry, she has no intention of uploading her soul into any computer just yet. Find her at www.gemmakchurch.com or on Bluesky.