Sci Fi Short Fiction

Here's everything tagged: Machine Sentience

All Sci-fi Fantasy Horror
Stupefying Stories

In Her Image

Coming Soon

Esther willingly sacrifices it all: job, relationship, even liberty to see her children survive long enough to call her 'Mother'.

Far Future Machine Sentience X Queer Family
A photograph of an ornate, multi-level historic library interior, with floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves filled with old books, an elaborate wrought-iron balcony railing in the foreground, and a large, white, sans-serif text overlay across the center that reads "Coming Soon".
Reckoning

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future Inequality Climate Machine Sentience X
Cover of Reckoning: It Was Paradise, featuring an intricate, symmetrical illustration of a horned, green, and white mythological monster mask with striking red eyes and an open mouth on a plain white background.
Cast Of Wonders

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future Inequality Climate Machine Sentience X
A cropped section of the header artwork for Cast of Wonders 654, featuring an abstract illustration composed of ink-sketch lines, a prominent vibrant red shape speckled with white splatters, and the outline of a stylized human face.
Robots Past & Future (Flame Tree Press)

Arboreal Recovery Cluster, Node 896

Are loneliness, duty, honor, and most of all hope strictly human-only emotions?

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Near Future Machine Sentience X Climate Family
Cover of Gothic Fantasy: Robots Past & Future Short Stories, featuring an ornate turquoise-and-black illustration surrounding the title.
Kaleidotrope

Rise Again

Afaf defies the strictures of her community to set out on a search mission for her mother, for the truth, and ultimately for herself.

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Far Future Machine Sentience X Rebellion Family
Header artwork for Kaleidotrope Magazine, Autumn 2024, featuring a vibrant, watercolor-style fantasy illustration of a silhouetted witch wearing a pointed hat standing in a forest clearing, surrounded by dark gnarled trees, a perched owl, and glowing fireflies against a starry, multicolored twilight sky.
Heartlines Spec

Unfit for Purpose

Facing the sudden loss of her carer bot, eight-year old Marwa fights back with every trick she knows.

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Far Future Machine Sentience X Young Adult Family
Cover of Heartlines Spec, Issue 5, Summer 2024, featuring a stylized illustration of a person sitting on a shoreline next to an orange tent, looking out at a large, multi-humped spiky sea serpent swimming in a lake at night under a full moon.
Learning to be Human (Flame Tree Press)

Life According to Tabeeb

To care for humans, CAMS-45 must first learn what it means to be human: exploitation but also community, and eventually Rebellion.

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Near Future Inequality Climate Machine Sentience X
Cover of Gothic Fantasy: Learning to be Human Short Stories, featuring a highly ornate, glowing teal filigree border surrounding a central text frame, below which a small, pixelated green digital face is visible.
Utopia Science Fiction

Earl Grey and Some Glue

In a dizzyingly changing world, Awad hangs onto the only thing he has left from the life he once cherished, whatever the cost.

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Far Future Queer Machine Sentience X Family
Cover of Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, June/July 2023, featuring a top-down photograph of broken white and blue ceramic shards scattered across a dark, marble-patterned tiled floor.
StarShipSofa

Rockhoppers

Zohra tussles with a devastating loss, a life-changing find, and herself.

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Far Future Machine Sentience X Death Family
Sci-fi illustration of characters in armor facing a large, multi-limbed creature in a misty landscape overlaid with the red and yellow StarShipSofa logo.
Andromeda Spaceways Magazine

Arboreal Recovery Cluster, Node 896

Are loneliness, duty, honor, and most of all hope strictly human-only emotions?

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Near Future Machine Sentience X Climate Family
Cover of Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Issue 80, September 2020, featuring a purple-haired woman writing at a desk surrounded by books and papers.
Sci Phi Journal

Asymptotic Convergence

What is a fate worse than extinction? Is survival truly worth any price?

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Far Future Aliens Machine Sentience X
Cover of SciPhi Journal, 2019, Issue 3, featuring a glowing white illustration of a winged angel hovering above the curvature of the Earth against a black space background.