Name: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
Rating: 3.349056603773585 (106 reviews)
ISBN: 9780441363957

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

Erika Dilbaryan

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

One of my favorite reads ever - I like the way they explore the concept of humanity at its most instinctive - the way the people lose themselves to this and how we see it all from Ted's viewpoint, so skewed by his own punishment he doesn't realize its happening 

Sophie M

Tim Pendry

A truly horrific story about the creation of hell for a small group of five survivors of a Terminator scenario - an artificial general intelligence has destroyed the rest of humanity using its capability as a human-created war machine. The five are not simply surviving in a post-apocalyptic hell on earth. They are abstracted from that hell into a worse one within the underground structure of the AGI. The AGI wants to express its own continued loathing for humanity because of the circumstances of its creation. The AGI comes only to exist for its hatred. Able to create any reality it wants in order to torment the five, it can get deep inside the human mind and construct a state of eternal torment for people it won't let die, one that is beyond imagining (though Ellison does an excellent job of coming close). A great deal of the virtue of this 1967 Hugo Award winning story lies in the writing which has all the taut energy of a wordsmith who manages to channel Hemingway more than Ashton Smith in his description of both physical and psychological horror. Grim, remorseless and dark!

Nat Wong

why so much hate on this one…I think y’all misunderstood it

Matvei

have only read the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' short story but oh it was so good??? 

AM being the god but being so lost in his own existence, not being able to ever truly live, so he torments the ones that can live and tortures them mentally to the point where they just wish to die. and making ted into a jelly version of himself because he knows that the worst thing he could do to ted is to make him conscious yet without any autonomy of his own. AM being everything yet nothing at the same time is his greatest curse and so he does the same thing to ted. and you know. it was good. 

let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I've began to live

Anna 

have only read the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' short story but oh it was so good??? 

AM being the god but being so lost in his own existence, not being able to ever truly live, so he torments the ones that can live and tortures them mentally to the point where they just wish to die. and making ted into a jelly version of himself because he knows that the worst thing he could do to ted is to make him conscious yet without any autonomy of his own. AM being everything yet nothing at the same time is his greatest curse and so he does the same thing to ted. and you know. it was good. 

are these laurels to be proud of? 

let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I've began to live

anna 

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!

dann

D D D 

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

doxi 

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."

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

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