Harlan Ellison

The concerns and stylistic evolution of the famed futuristic writer are revealed in seven science fiction tales

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

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I think I realized completely, so that I was able to verbalize it: AM was intent on keeping us in his belly forever, twisting and torturing us forever The machine hated us as no sentient creature had ever hated before. And we were helpless. It also became hideously clear:

If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM.

Among Ellison's more famous stories, two consistently noted as his very best ever are the Hugo Award–winning, postapocalyptic title story of this collection of seven shorts and the volume's concluding story, “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.” Since Ellison himself strongly resists categorization of his work, we will not call them science fiction, or SF, or speculative fiction or horror or anything else except compelling reading experiences that are utterly unique. They could only have been written by the great Harlan Ellison, and they are incomparably original.

anna 

Seven stunning stories of speculative fiction by the author of A Boy and His Dog. In a post-apocalyptic world, four men and one woman are all that remain of the human race, brought to near extinction by an artificial intelligence. Programmed to wage war on behalf of its creators, the AI became self-aware and turned against humanity. The five survivors are prisoners, kept alive and subjected to brutal torture by the hateful and sadistic machine in an endless cycle of violence. This story and six more groundbreaking and inventive tales that probe the depths of mortal experience prove why Grand Master of Science Fiction Harlan Ellison has earned the many accolades to his credit and remains one of the most original voices in American literature. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream also includes “Big Sam Was My Friend,” “Eyes of Dust,” “World of the Myth,” “Lonelyache,” Hugo Award finalist “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer,” and Hugo and Nebula Award finalist “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.”

Stories

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream

Maya 

This is nightmare fuel… but I love the concept!

can’t sleep and found this on a pinterest post… needless to say i am still antsy but this scratched an itch. the way the narration changed progressively in tone and i felt myself also growing a bit madder alongside the narrator… amazing!

Danniella

Listened to the audiobook and the audio is ass but Harlan can READ

Bowie 

D D D 

The person that recommended this did not mention how I would actually dislike it

doxi 

Geoffrey Froggatt

** spoiler alert **
           This is the closest thing to hell I’ve ever heard described. I highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Ian Gordon. His voice perfectly captures the dread, darkness and madness of this story. The characters are hollow husks of what they were in their previous lives, the remaining five human beings alone in the world remain immortal, tortured and tormented by a supreme artificial intelligence that has destroyed the world. This story has undeniably been the precursor for the evil artificial intelligence trope in media and fiction. As a huge fan of the horror genre, many people have asked what truly scared me. True crime, supernatural horror, psychological horror, etcetera. I appreciate these horror subgenres, but none of it truly scares me to think about. None of the typical horror subgenres and tropes truly cut me as deep as the idea of machines and artificial intelligence becoming self-aware and destroying humanity. The initial thought doesn’t particularly scare me, but when I think about it, it’s probably the most likely horrific scenario and almost feels like an inevitability. The idea of the technological singularity — a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization — seems unavoidable if humanity and technology continues at the pace it has been going. Every time I see new advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, a part of myself thinks, is this the beginning of the singularity? Is this how it starts? 

If this story scared you or left an impression and you are craving more, I highly recommend looking up the thought experiment of Roko’s Basilisk. This story was clearly the progenitor of many things, but I think that Roko’s Basilisk is the scariest thing that has come from this masterpiece. I must warn you, the thought experiment itself is an “info hazard”, and the idea itself is that if you know what it is, it may potentially torture you for all eternity if it were to come true. When it comes to the technological singularity, this short story shows the end result of such an event. The writing style of this story is simple but very effective. The bleakness is highlighted by the protagonist’s restlessness, paranoia and eternal suffering. This story isn’t for readers who only want to read about “strong” characters. This story is about hopelessness and a grim dark future. The reader can’t help but feel a portion of the hopelessness that the main characters feel. 

Even though the short story is infamous for the bleak ending of the “surviving” final human character, I feel like the ending has a deeper meaning. Even after exposing the remaining humans to endless torture, the protagonist still finds the mercy to spare the others from torture even if that means they suffer as a result. This is something that AM cannot do, and has shown to be incapable of. When the narrator spares the other humans and deepens his own eternal torture, it shows the artificial intelligence that humans are still capable of caring and empathizing for each other, as they always were. AM encapsulates hatred itself, despite seemingly infinite wisdom and power, the humans demonstrate a greater mental capacity and emotional ability than the machine intelligence itself. I think that despite the bleakness of it all, this story shows that humanity can still show dignity and humanity for others in the darkest of times, something AM could never do. I think the narrator’s eternal sacrifice is devastatingly beautiful. Even though AM makes the narrator feel as though it has won, a part of AM must know it has lost, finding itself completely alone with only one human to torture for eternity. I find that ending fitting for an artificial intelligence designed for war, and it drives home the idea for me that nobody ever wins in war. That’s only my interpretation, of course. I always loved the legendary and eponymous line, “I have no mouth, and I must scream”. Not only is it completely devastating and a piece of very effective fridge horror, but I feel like it could apply to not only the narrator, but to AM itself. I highly recommend this story for those who want to experience the progenitor of modern science fiction horror.

Sage

Things of note

- BLAH BLAH BLAH misogyny. Really? The characters are fucked up from having been TRAPPED BY A COMPUTER FOR CENTURIES. Invalid criticism. I don't think you just discount a piece of writing because the characters he writes are flawed. The story was fun - some of it tiresome to read, but most of it was well-written (as in, not boring, fairly thrilling). Also, do you even author's intent??????

- "Oh, Jesus sweet Jesus, if there ever was a Jesus and if there is a God, please please please let us out of here, or kill us. Because at that moment I think I realized completely, so that I was able to verbalize it: AM was intent on keeping us in his belly forever, twisting and torturing us forever. The machine hated us as no sentient creature had ever hated before. And we were helpless. It also became hideously clear:
If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM." 

- Manna: described as being "a fine, flake-like thing" like the frost on the ground. Exodus states that raw manna tasted like wafers that had been made with honey. Israelites were instructed to eat only the manna they had gathered for each day. Stored manna "bred worms and stank"

- "God as Daddy the Deranged"

- "When AM had altered Benny, during the machine's utterly irrational, hysterical phase, it was not merely Benny's face the computer had made like a giant ape's. He was big in the privates; she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him. Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristine-pure Ellen; oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth."

- "I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within."

Alec Karlen

Tilde C

This collection of short stories is my first real exposure to Ellison, and I can say he definitely hasn't been overhyped as a storyteller: He's a clever and extremely competent writer with interesting ideas and a rare mastery of language.

But he's SO WEIRD about women.

I've read a lot of older literature, I'm used to ignoring a level of period-typical misogyny if the work has other qualities, but Ellison is distractingly WEIRD about women. I'd even been forewarned about it, and already in the first story I thought "Well, it's clearly the protagonist's views being shown, an author's gotta be allowed to give his characters unsavory opinions" but it KEPT HAPPENING. It got to the point where I'd feel something tense in the back of my mind whenever he'd introduce a female character, because in this collection they KEEP getting raped and are secretly enjoying it or inviting it, or they exist as stupid and worthless fuck-dolls, and they're ALWAYS false and cruel. In the introductions to each story Ellison keeps bringing up his own sex life, bragging about how many women he's fucked or talking about specific women in his life and explaining what a tragedy it is that he "didn't manage to lay her".

The title story is great! The one female character is raped and the main character resents her for it, though. 'World of Myth' is one of the best "stranded on an alien planet" sci-fi stories I've read! The one female character is raped and the main character resents her for it, though. 'Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes' is a really interesting piece of experimental storytelling! The one female character is a prostitute and by God are we meant to look down on her, though.

Harlan, I'm tired.

Abigail Joyann

This is a wonderful collection of Ellison's short stories and the perfect antidote to the slump I'm currently fighting.

Ashlyn

Ellison's stories aren't expressly *bad*, but they would benefit from better editing (which by his own admission is something he detested). Yes, there's lots of misogyny, but in the way that most fiction written in that time are misogynistic (looking at you, Heinlein). This collection is decent early cyberpunk that should probably be read by anyone who wants to deepen their experience with the genre. It's fine 🤷🏼‍♀️

Sage Lee

Emma

Initially, some good short stories. However it got very repetitive and the same topics were just portrayed in different settings.

Princess Targaryen

Misogynistic. Almost every men in here has a lust for women. And there is this one man who witness his crewmate r*pe his female crewmate and still hadn't done anything until that "thing" happen again and this r*pe victim still feel concerned on wether her abuser died! I don't understand why is she still seeing him after that 1st incident. I love the concept of "World of Myth" but what is this shit. Every single women in this collection of short stories here were addressed as a wh*re, a slut, and an object for pleasure. I would have have give this book 4 stars only if it weren't misogynistic. I am not saying that the author is misogynistic-in fact I am trying hard not to judge him based on how his characters views women-means, I am addresssing the characters as a misogynist not the author himself. 

I don't know if ever I'll consider this stories as a sci-fi? It doesn't seem very sci-fi. Sure, it do contains some elements of science fiction such as the world building, and those futuristic objects, and unexplainble creatures and powers, but the plot didn't felt sci-fi. Harlan Ellison had a very strange vocabulary, I don't understand some words he is using-I feel like he made up those words, because Google can't even give me meaning of those obscure words. I do like how he tells the story, as every was saying, it felt very dream-like. It felt very transcendental while still giving you a headache.

My favorite story in here is "Eye of Dust". I don't really like "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" that much-it's great-but it's very disturbing and haunting. It haunt me at 3 A.M.-the morning after I finished reading "IHNMAIMS". The last 3 short stories, I didn't quite understand-as if I wanted to understand it? I am extremely pissed with the misogyny of the characters that I badly wanna bang my laptop, I didn't care if I did understand those remaining stories or not, all I ever wanted was to finish the book. I have no plans on rereading this book not even in the next twenty lifetimes.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

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