I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

[cornerofmadness]

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's been decades since I read this and I only listened to this for a combo of reasons: needed an audio book & a short story for reading challenges and episode 8 of The Amazing Digital Circus (which drew inspiration from this) was looming. Harlan Ellison was a talented author but he is not a talented voice actor. I'm glad I got to listen to him doing it but unlike a lot of reviewers I didn't think he was great at it.

And I'm biased against him, I admit it. I'm old enough to have been there for his piss poor behavior at cons, at how horribly he treated fans (and women in general) and I know his history of sexual transgressions, physical assaults and violent temper.

That said, this is a fascinating, gross and disturbing short SF horror story and it's meant to be. Humans managed to destroy themselves (with the help of AI) and a psychotic AI named AM has saved five humans and has spent centuries keeping them alive (somehow) and torturing them with one AI simulation after another. It is also intimated that he can do them physical harm. These survivors – Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ted, and Ellen – are trapped by an AI that loathes humans and wants nothing more than to see them suffer.

This thing one a Hugo the year after I was born and whatever I feel about Ellison as a person he was an incredibly talented author and had a ton of foresight because frankly who today can't see this future with AI as it is right now. Ted is our narrator telling us all of AM's god-like petty revenge scenarios which are creepy and awful. Ellison's misogyny comes thru strong with Ellen's only purpose really (as Ted describes it but he's not a reliable narrator. He believes he's the only one AM hasn't made insane and we can see that's not true) is to service the four men. Which ugh. (and even more ugh, Ted thinks she likes it)

There is a brilliant bit of rebellion in this and then an even more horrible aftermath. It's a short story and in this case a short listen which is free on Youtube. I do think it's worth listening to.



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