Book Review - I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

Technology has always been a double edged sword, and with the great ability to
use advancements for good, comes the nearly infinite ability to use those same
advancements for evil. The mechanical apocalypse is a scenario that has become almost
clichéd in the last 20 years, but before the iconic Terminators, before the all-powerful
Matrix, and even before the nuclear wasteland of Mad Max, Harlan Ellison imagined a
future where our own technological advances led us directly into the hands of doomsday.
In his epic short story, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Ellison delivers a
very unique (even to this day) vision of man’s fate at the hands of his own creations. A
hundred years after the demise of mankind, the sentient super-computer AM, as in “I
think therefore I am,” revels in torturing the last five humans left. Unlike other similar
scenarios, Ellison doesn’t have a colony of humans surviving under the Earth’s crust, or
on the moon, or in some bunker, all that remains of a species that once numbered in the
billions, is four men and one woman. These five are kept in a vast subterranean complex,
and have been rendered effectively immortal by AM; they never age and are eternally
tortured by the sadistic computer.
What is most frightening about Ellison’s scenario, is that AM didn’t destroy
humanity out of fear; unlike so many other similar AI’s, Armageddon wasn’t brought
about out of caution or self-preservation, but rather a burning hatred for the beings that
created it. A combination of Chinese, Russian, and American supercomputers, AM finds
itself bound by the laws and restrictions programmed into it, never free, and never able to
really break free of its human programming. Thus, in seeking to distance itself from
humanity, AM becomes a personification of that is terrible within us. In its frustration
and its anger, it uses its creative mind to warp the remaining five humans into cruel
mockeries of what they once were. It tortures them endlessly, using them like pieces in a
never ending game to test the limits of human morals and survivability. Much like
scientists once did to animal subjects, AM feels no remorse in running them through
mazes, depriving them of food, and warping their very bodies. In lashing out at the
humans, AM has become more human than it could have ever expected.
This is the true terror of Ellison’s story, as both the written version and the
adapted videogame are constantly listed on top-ten scariest lists by fans, teachers, and
even people who don’t read regularly. There is a reason the story is one of the most
reprinted in American fiction, and to this day stands as a reminder of what horrible things
we are capable of, and just how those can easily carry over into the thought and actions of
the things we create, whether they are sentient computers, or our own children.
The story ends in one of the best shocks put on paper, and as you put it down, the
title will make more sense than you could ever want it to, but Ellison isn’t scaring us for
no reason. Like all of the best works of art, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, works
to teach us a lesson, using science fiction and mixing it with just enough reminders of our
own inhumane acts as a species that we can just as easily see ourselves as AM as we can
one of the five survivors.

Contributed by KZ

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Note: This review is tied to last week's topic which didn't air but will be covered next week. Enjoy.