Skinner Box

by Carole Johnstone

"Skinner Box," a Tor.com Original short story from award-winning author Carole Johnston.A disturbing science fiction story about space exploration and a seemingly routine scientific mission to Jupiter that is threatened by the interpersonal relationships of its crew.Content warning for fictional depictions of sexual content, including abuse and assault.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Artificial Intelligence, Space

41 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2019

About the author

Carole Johnstone grew up in Lanarkshire, Scotland. She has been writing as long as she can remember, and is an award-winning short story writer whose work has been reprinted and translated worldwide. She has been published by HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Titan Books, and has written Sherlock Holmes stories for Constable & Robinson.

MIRRORLAND, her debut novel, has sold in 13 territories, and has been optioned by Heyday TV and NBC Universal.

Her second novel, THE BLACKHOUSE, is a gothic thriller and unusual whodunnit set on an isolated Scottish island where nothing is as it seems, and shocking twists lie around every corner. Out Aug 4 2022 in the UK and Jan 3 2023 in the US and CAN.

Carole now writes full-time, and lives with her husband in the Highlands of Scotland, though her heart belongs to the sea and wild islands of the Outer Hebrides.

See carolejohnstone.com for more information and giveaways.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the reward is big enough, wanted or needed enough, a rat will endure pain past the point of recovery. Of sense. And that’s obvious why too. All life, after all, is just pushing levers and hoping.

2020: i am back on the tor train!!

this one was up-and-down for me. first things first: i know it's de rigueur to make with the content warnings, like the one right before this story—Content warning for fictional depictions of sexual content, including abuse and assault, but i could have done with a warning about how looooong this story was. something like: if you are reading this story to take a break from the work you are meant to be doing but are writer's blocked on, be aware that it will be a longer break than you've earned and will make you feel even guiltier for having taken the break in the first place, even though you will be fulfilling your vow about reading a tor short per week and at least that part of your constant guilt-tornado will be lessened.

anyway. you all know i'm not a science fiction girl, so the parts of this that were all 'nanite this' and 'beep boop that' made my brain go fly a kite, as did the kissy parts. the rest of it was great. i liked the psychological aspects and the setup, and even though i predicted a lot of it, it's like the story says:

My mother used to say that it was the journey that was important, and not the destination. I never thought she was right. But the suits from Astro Labs do. And I might be flattered by Mas’s interest in my research, but that’s only ego, my ridiculous need for him to see me. In reality, it’s all just busywork. No different to Don’s biotech experiments or Mas running his endless simulations. Our work is not the mission. The destination is not the mission. My mission. I’ve always known that.

MY mission isn't 'to get to the end of a book and find out what happens,' so much as it is 'to read a book and enjoy it,' so if i figure out a thing or two before the author planned on sharing that thing or two, it's no big deal as long as i'm having a good time on my journey. and i was, except for the to-be-expected genre standards that always make my brain fizz, which reaction is absolutely a me-problem and not a story-flaw.

overall, it's a really good story—dark and complex, with a nice thunderclap of an ending. carve out some time.



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2019/06/12/skinne...

come to my blog!

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.

This Tor novella measured in at less than 50 pages and yet had about as many plot twists included in it! The space setting was well-introduced, as was the reason for the characters insertion there. I did not guess where the story was going and so every twist left me truly open-mouthed. I need Johnstone to pen me a full-length novel featuring these characters, please!

[Alina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll also put the name of the story here, in case Goodreads decides to merge it into some other work...
Skinner Box by Carole Johnstone - 3.5/5★

A SF/space opera story about an experiment with artificial intelligence and nanites on a mission to Jupiter, with a side of domestic violence added.

The short story is found in Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2019 edition and can also be read on Tor.com.

[York · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pretty good short story with several twists and turns along the way. I rate it 3.5 stars, giving a half star for grabbing me with one of curves I didn't see coming. It was a free read, too, in the 2019 "Best of Tor.com.." There are some other great short stories and novellas in their library as well...

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lady or the Tiger ending. Not bad, but disturbing. Has spousal abuse and sex, be warned if that isn’t your thing. 3 stars.

[Paul (Life In The Slow Lane) · Rating 4 out of 5]

More twists than a 1960s dance floor.

This is a shortie consisting of a twisty combination of murder mysteries. The "mystery" though, isn't that we have to figure out whodunnit, it's working out who is the human and who is the perfect AI. This will make you think...hard! My head STILL hurts. I liked the cool, vintage SciFi references - Nostromo for example. This is a well crafted story compressed into 50 pages or so. Very clever.

[Corrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Skinner Box by author Carole Johnstone is a sci-fi short story you can either read on Scribd or read for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2019/06/12/skinne...

A disturbing science fiction story about a seemingly routine scientific mission to Jupiter that is threatened by the interpersonal relationships of its crew.

Woah! This was brilliant. A bit brainy but the build-up is oh so clever. And the twists keep coming. I would love to read more of this author.

Content warning for fictional depictions of sexual content, including abuse and assault.

5 Stars

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story 3 in my 24 Days of Shorts

All life, after all, is just pushing levers and hoping.

This made me laugh out loud, and it felt very real and relatable. Well, up to a point.

What are your rewards? How far will you go for them? Is your choice real? How do you know?

I really liked this ... until I didn’t. There are a lot of variables that had to be manipulated to reach that conclusion. In real life, that wouldn’t happen . They forced it to happen, and then acted disappointed.



read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2019/06/12/skinne...



My 24 Days of Shorts
1. File N°002 by Sylvain Neuvel
2. File N°247 by Sylvain Neuvel
3. Skinner Box by Carole Johnstone
4. The Weight of Memories by Liu Cixin
5. A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong
6. If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho
7. Meat And Salt And Sparks by Rich Larson
8. Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu
9. Where Would You Be Now? by Carrie Vaughn
10. Old Media by Annalee Newitz
11. The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz
12. Sweetlings by Lucy Taylor
13. An Unexpected Honor by Ursula Vernon
14. Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang
15. A Love Story by Samantha Hunt
16. The Lake by Tananarive Due
17. Ghost Hedgehog by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
18. Finnegan's Field by Angela Slatter
19. Among the Thorns by Veronica Schanoes
20. Rag and Bone by Priya Sharma
21. The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
22. As Good as New by Charlie Jane Anders
23. Twixt Firelight and Water by Juliet Marillier
24. The Christmas Show by Pat Cadigan

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was going to give this a 3-star rating, because I liked the premise of the lead being a sentient AI but the soap opera quality of it really turned me off. Not to mention the 80s sci-fi jack-off fest going on with the other elements in the story - *cough* NOSTROMO *cough* DILITHIUM *cough*. I understand using common knowledge and having fun to set up a believable fake scenario but come on.

And by the way, what happened to the nanites that killed Don? Where did they go? I would think they would have escaped the corpse and begun exploring and experimenting with the rest of the ship - now THAT would be a good story. Oh, wait. TNG already did that when Wesley Crusher was experimenting with AI and expanding nanite intelligence. SPOILER ALERT: they escaped while he was sleeping and became smarter in their new environment. This story also pulls from another TNG episode wherein Data replicates his own child-android after his own system and fails at it.

I think this story could have been more interesting if we viewed Evie as an android immediately from the start rather than having our expectations subverted in the middle. I love the fact that she has absolutely no idea what she is but I would like to have "been in the know" so I could enjoy the twist more fully - maybe enjoy a real mystery and not just a surprise mind game that didn't lead anywhere more interesting by the end.

[Miriam Cihodariu]

I always love Tor short stories and this is among the ones I loved best. It describes in a disquieting way the pressure and horror of being isolated in space with people you must rely on, and whom you ultimately cannot trust. I find that stories which show how, at the end of the day, human nature does not evolve as fast as its accomplishments to be the truest fictions of them all.

[Drakeryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

[S]ometimes, I just imagine him lying on the floor, the back of his skull caved in like eggshell, spilling blood and brains and cerebrospinal fluid. I’ve never been fussy. Perhaps I should have been.

This was an incredible ride.

Three people are cooped up on a spaceship for a long interplanetary voyage. There's Evie, a scientist studying neural networks; her shitbag abusive husband; and Mas, the ship's engineer, who is very sympathetic to her situation. Evie, pushed to the breaking point, is hatching a plot to kill her husband.

Then, things get wild. I can't say much more because of spoilers, but the plot-twist-to-text ratio is like the highest I've ever experienced and I'm still reeling from it.

Read it for free here:
https://www.tor.com/2019/06/12/skinne...

(Also, a warning: I recommend not looking at other Goodreads reviews before reading since there are a ton of unmarked spoilers.)

[Rebecca Crunden]

Can a cognitive neuroscientist be fooled? Can an expert in the field of deep learning and AI evolution be unknowingly coerced? Can a genius be corrupted? Can a manipulator be manipulated?

Wow. This started out one kind of intense and then turned into a whole other kind of intense and I'm fairly darn impressed. Be sure to mind the warnings at the top, but I definitely recommend this! A very dark, riveting sci-fi short.

[Leather · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit too cerebral and too disembodied for my taste. In that particular way of encasing the manipulations, Philip K Dick was giving his characters a little more depth.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unpleasant novella about some uncomfortable truths. Evie, whom we were led to believe was the most highly educated and disciplined type of woman, was actually only an experiment in how women react to men. She gratified her creators in the most predictable way possible, by fooling herself into believing her African lover was an engineer and that he loved her enough to murder her abusive husband.

An African with a low IQ, and a female scientist who cheated and lusted like any dumb tramp.

I mean ...

[Jac · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt a little disjointed, like reading parts of a longer story or novel.

[steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok so i need to start reading more tor shorts bc this was really good

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good science fiction horror.

[Des Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

“When you’re a baby, different regions of the brain connect to each other in a specific sequence, layer by layer, until the whole brain is mature.”

Nanite by nanite.
I worked at Gestalt real-time reviewing this novelette in the same way as it said in it (quoted above), till I realised it was doing similar to me, but better. Yet, I persevered. Still am. Bloody Fool that I am. Ends and means. Torture and reward. Free will and preternatural determination. Cancer cells and cyborg ones.

“The skin isn’t broken.”
…it also said, somewhere in its box. A digital box in e-space, near Jupiter? Box or Beckettian cell.

[Ambrose Malles · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5 Stars) This is the first story I read for my Tor short story challenge, not a bad start either. I've read worse. It's a Sci-fi book about artificial intelligence and science experiments related to a skinner box within a skinner box. The science jargon mostly went over my head as usual but was made up for with the plot twists. There was a surprising amount of these considering it was such a short story. I got Maze Runner vibes toward the end of it but wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending. However, at no point during the story was I board and so I would say it was adequately gripping. Didn't blow me out of the water, but it didn't sink my boat either.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you liked Emily Eternal, you'll like this - especially since you can read it for free here.

Similarly, if you liked this short story, try Emily Eternal next. Not quite as dark though.

They both probably need more attention.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was four stars until the end. It lost a star because the writing became vague and convoluted, and as though it was attempting to be philosophical, and unsuccessfully so.

I couldn't picture several scenes and actions that the author was describing and much of what happens doesn't make sense. It just kind of goes off the rails at the end. Perhaps the author was struggling with finding an appropriate ending, because the rest of the story is solid.

I would still recommend this story, though. It is an interesting concept and the writing is really quite good overall.

[Lizabeth Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A trip to Jupiter and back, scientists caught up in their personal cycle of pain and hatred, an engineer who brings some comfort and support. And a Skinner box filled with nanites.

There are layers upon layers upon layers in this intense story of experimentation and conditioning, the cost of freedom and, ultimately, love. In essence, there are three reveals. The first was expected almost from the start. The second was almost suspected after we met Boris. But it was the third that, for me, saved the story from the coldness. 3.5 out of 5.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this story, it had a lot of twists and turns and was very ... brutal. So brutal that I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is sensitive to domestic abuse. I did feel like it kind of went on a little too much after what felt like a natural ending though. Still a very interesting take on the concept.

[Roland · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was somewhat dragging till halfway through, then the plot thickened and in the last third it threw some pretty thought provoking curveballs, which almost nudged it into the 'really liked it'-section. Almost.

[C.E.C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 - 3.5 stars
Very twisty and thought-out, with interesting themes and a compelling setup and protagonist. I suppose it could be said that it does everything decently, and the only thing it truly shines more with is its concepts.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

It just wasn't my cup of tea. It was well written and put together well, and the story would appeal to others I'm sure.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up reading this story in one go. I was drawn in from the start and just HAD to keep reading until the end. I definitely recommend this story to sci-fi fans!

[Charl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Philip K. Dick and his obsession with identifying reality.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really my kind of story. I did not like the violence and sex but, arguably, they were necessary in the context of the story. However, it is fascinating how it builds to the eventual “twist”.

[Katrina Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

***CONTENT WARNING***** RAPE/VIOLENCE *****
This was a great short story about "survivors" and it had a surprisingly refreshing twist at the end. Disturbing but a good read.