Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Open Road Media (2014), 162 pages
Description
A Grand Master of Science Fiction and the multiple-award-winning author of A Boy and His Dog presents seven stunning stories of speculative fiction. Hugo Award winner I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is living legend Harlan Ellison's masterpiece of future warfare. 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 all 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. Presented here with six more groundbreaking and inventive tales that probe the depths of mortal experience, this collection proves why Ellison has earned the many accolades he's received 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." … (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member tootstorm
It's not possible to read Harlan Ellison's stories without thinking about Harlan Ellison the personality. Even if you go into his collections unaware of the stereotype Ellison's crafted for himself, that stereotype will be on your mind by the end of the first story's introduction.
I Have No Mouth
*** I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM ***
So "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," alone in the collection, might be worth reading before the roll of time deems it too dated. After the death of humanity, five survivors are trapped inside an AI a la HAL-9000, and, tortured year after year by the hateful AI named AM (as in cogito ergo sum). The survivors all represent gross aspects of humanity -- stereotypes, whether naturally or shaped by AM is up for debate -- like the prostitute, the idealist, the messiah, etc. (I've also seen them and the AI painted as the deadly sins.)
Humanity's woes 109 years after the end of civilization are painted as grossly as their embodied human attributes. You don't care for any of them -- and you shouldn't. The male survivors, including the narrator, are particularly fixated on the woman, who herself is a bag of sexist tropes. Humanity is gross, and the nastiness of these people and this AI are forgivable, I think, within the context of the story.
That doesn't make the story great, though. A dangerous AI with this much loathing as written by an author ignorant of computers in 1967 all date this story. The logic of AM's torture methods and the artificial world humanity's last survivors are stuck in defies itself constantly every few pages with a contradiction.
*** BIG SAM WAS MY FRIEND ****
"Big Sam was My Friend" is perhaps the most dated story in the collection, envisioning alien civilizations through 1950s Americana. It's about a teleporting performer -- Big Sam -- looking for his long-lost love while escaping to a space circus.
Being set in a space circus, being driven by a boring, boy's love story full of machismo, and being centered around gobbledygook painted as sci-fi make this forgettable as hell.
*** EYES OF DUST ***
"Eyes of Dust" reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk. Ellison lauds his social satire of our cultural obsession with manufactured beauty, and then beats that message into every word and every page of this story. It's a shallow look at 1950s consumerism via two 'normal' (i.e., plain-looking) lovers. I had to look the story up a day after finishing it because I couldn't remember it.
*** WORLD OF THE MYTH ***
"World of the Myth" is fairly enjoyable for its ideas, but it lacks development in its characters, and the story is stream-of-consciousness. The relationships between two men and a female scientist dips into casual misogyny and rape, two things painted as both horrible and deserved. On the other side of the spectrum, the ant-like species our heroes study is fascinating, even if descriptions of its hivemind are ripped straight from Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human.
*** LONELYACHE ***
Up until this story, I was still trying to enjoy Ellison's writing. There were good ideas under there, and the bad was *almost* excusable by year of writing. "Lonelyache" is disgusting, and it doesn't help that Ellison introduces it as perhaps the best thing he's ever written. He describes it as autobiographical, inspired by his second divorce. While this could lead to some soul-searching for our hero, it doesn't. He stews in hatred and loathing of everyone. He -- and the story itself -- blame his ex-wife for divorcing him, for being thoughtless and not thinking of how divorce would hurt him emotionally. Now he floats, woman to woman, abusing and discarding them like meat.
He lays blame on his ex-wife -- his ex-wife who divorced him for cheating. The narrator argues that cheating is nothing, no big deal, and his wife is a bitch who over-reacted and hurt his feelings, and now it's her fault he's preying on other women.
This story is nowhere near the best thing Ellison's ever written. It's a throwaway fit of dated misogyny, lazily-written with its moral messages being obnoxious bullshit from a hateful, stupid person who's completely stuck up their own ass to understand people.
*** DELUSIONS FOR A DRAGON SLAYER ***
"Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" is the dying fantasies of a man crushed in a freak accident. His vision of heaven is built on whatever he dreams, as long as he can maintain the dream. He turns himself into a fantasy hero chasing beautiful women. The prose and the story is fragmented and cut to ribbons, perhaps meant to imitate his dying mind. This story is hard to follow, and not interesting. This is an idea that wasn't fleshed out beyond its concept.
*** PRETTY MAGGIE MONEYEYES ***
The final story in this collection is fairly entertaining. A broke gambler and ne'er-do-well connects with a haunted slot machine. He and only he sees the spirit of a young woman in the slot machine, a young woman who dropped dead weeks earlier in front of that very machine. She professes her love for him, and he continues to rack up winnings from the machine until the clever-but-necessary twist ending.
I wish I connected with these stories more; I wish I could look past the shallow pretentiousness of Ellison's ideas, or his execrable view of women in every story. The very hate he paints his characters with too often leads plots forward, and I could never connect with that. We should never have to rationalize against sexist portrayals, but the easy argument is it's lazy, that it's a sign of bad writing. I want to read about real people, connect with real characters, not be bored by abusive fantasies written by and for little boys of generations past. That this was the standout response to Harlan Ellison's stories is telling: Ellison's prime was all about ideas, but his writing, to me, feels rushed and drowned by poor characterization, by selfishness and bitter emotions.
I recommend the title story -- at this point, at least; it's wearing its age more and more -- but the rest of this collection has dated itself far too much, and is far too forgettable.
I Have No Mouth
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and I Must Scream is exclusively remembered for its title story, which is pretty entertaining and the best of the lot. He wrote it, reportedly, in a frenzied single night, and the final published version featured few edits. This is often a condescending brag, but the story's -- and most of the stories in this collection, which Ellison frequently notes as featuring few edits from his original vision -- prose comes off as clunky and rough around the edges. Clumsy patterns repeat repeat repeat themselves without end, showing off nice ideas but making each voice bleed together. I often appreciated the intent, but not the execution or the pompousness.*** I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM ***
So "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," alone in the collection, might be worth reading before the roll of time deems it too dated. After the death of humanity, five survivors are trapped inside an AI a la HAL-9000, and, tortured year after year by the hateful AI named AM (as in cogito ergo sum). The survivors all represent gross aspects of humanity -- stereotypes, whether naturally or shaped by AM is up for debate -- like the prostitute, the idealist, the messiah, etc. (I've also seen them and the AI painted as the deadly sins.)
Humanity's woes 109 years after the end of civilization are painted as grossly as their embodied human attributes. You don't care for any of them -- and you shouldn't. The male survivors, including the narrator, are particularly fixated on the woman, who herself is a bag of sexist tropes. Humanity is gross, and the nastiness of these people and this AI are forgivable, I think, within the context of the story.
That doesn't make the story great, though. A dangerous AI with this much loathing as written by an author ignorant of computers in 1967 all date this story. The logic of AM's torture methods and the artificial world humanity's last survivors are stuck in defies itself constantly every few pages with a contradiction.
*** BIG SAM WAS MY FRIEND ****
"Big Sam was My Friend" is perhaps the most dated story in the collection, envisioning alien civilizations through 1950s Americana. It's about a teleporting performer -- Big Sam -- looking for his long-lost love while escaping to a space circus.
Being set in a space circus, being driven by a boring, boy's love story full of machismo, and being centered around gobbledygook painted as sci-fi make this forgettable as hell.
*** EYES OF DUST ***
"Eyes of Dust" reminded me of Chuck Palahniuk. Ellison lauds his social satire of our cultural obsession with manufactured beauty, and then beats that message into every word and every page of this story. It's a shallow look at 1950s consumerism via two 'normal' (i.e., plain-looking) lovers. I had to look the story up a day after finishing it because I couldn't remember it.
*** WORLD OF THE MYTH ***
"World of the Myth" is fairly enjoyable for its ideas, but it lacks development in its characters, and the story is stream-of-consciousness. The relationships between two men and a female scientist dips into casual misogyny and rape, two things painted as both horrible and deserved. On the other side of the spectrum, the ant-like species our heroes study is fascinating, even if descriptions of its hivemind are ripped straight from Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human.
*** LONELYACHE ***
Up until this story, I was still trying to enjoy Ellison's writing. There were good ideas under there, and the bad was *almost* excusable by year of writing. "Lonelyache" is disgusting, and it doesn't help that Ellison introduces it as perhaps the best thing he's ever written. He describes it as autobiographical, inspired by his second divorce. While this could lead to some soul-searching for our hero, it doesn't. He stews in hatred and loathing of everyone. He -- and the story itself -- blame his ex-wife for divorcing him, for being thoughtless and not thinking of how divorce would hurt him emotionally. Now he floats, woman to woman, abusing and discarding them like meat.
He lays blame on his ex-wife -- his ex-wife who divorced him for cheating. The narrator argues that cheating is nothing, no big deal, and his wife is a bitch who over-reacted and hurt his feelings, and now it's her fault he's preying on other women.
This story is nowhere near the best thing Ellison's ever written. It's a throwaway fit of dated misogyny, lazily-written with its moral messages being obnoxious bullshit from a hateful, stupid person who's completely stuck up their own ass to understand people.
*** DELUSIONS FOR A DRAGON SLAYER ***
"Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" is the dying fantasies of a man crushed in a freak accident. His vision of heaven is built on whatever he dreams, as long as he can maintain the dream. He turns himself into a fantasy hero chasing beautiful women. The prose and the story is fragmented and cut to ribbons, perhaps meant to imitate his dying mind. This story is hard to follow, and not interesting. This is an idea that wasn't fleshed out beyond its concept.
*** PRETTY MAGGIE MONEYEYES ***
The final story in this collection is fairly entertaining. A broke gambler and ne'er-do-well connects with a haunted slot machine. He and only he sees the spirit of a young woman in the slot machine, a young woman who dropped dead weeks earlier in front of that very machine. She professes her love for him, and he continues to rack up winnings from the machine until the clever-but-necessary twist ending.
I wish I connected with these stories more; I wish I could look past the shallow pretentiousness of Ellison's ideas, or his execrable view of women in every story. The very hate he paints his characters with too often leads plots forward, and I could never connect with that. We should never have to rationalize against sexist portrayals, but the easy argument is it's lazy, that it's a sign of bad writing. I want to read about real people, connect with real characters, not be bored by abusive fantasies written by and for little boys of generations past. That this was the standout response to Harlan Ellison's stories is telling: Ellison's prime was all about ideas, but his writing, to me, feels rushed and drowned by poor characterization, by selfishness and bitter emotions.
I recommend the title story -- at this point, at least; it's wearing its age more and more -- but the rest of this collection has dated itself far too much, and is far too forgettable.
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LibraryThing member Jean_Sexton
I had read this a long time ago; in fact, I actually have a paperback that is autographed by Ellison. It was time to read it again. I had forgotten how well Ellison wrote. After reading the book, I realized how uncomfortable Ellison's stories make me.
It is the title story that gets the most
If you like well-written short stories, you might try this collection.
It is the title story that gets the most
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attention as it won the Hugo, deservedly so. The other two stories that affected me were "Delusion for a Dragon Slayer" and "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes." The first one left me sad for the title character. The latter one had so much to say about addiction and desire.If you like well-written short stories, you might try this collection.
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LibraryThing member ragwaine
Big Sam Was My Friend (Kinda lame especially after "Scream")
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Delusion for a Dragonslayer (Tripped out, harsh)
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Eyes of Dust (I guess the topic just seems old to me.)
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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (An assault on the mind. Scary.)
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Lonleyache (Bad ending, I think I get it, it's just stupid.)
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Pretty
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World of the Myth (Good, Dark, simple)
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Delusion for a Dragonslayer (Tripped out, harsh)
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Eyes of Dust (I guess the topic just seems old to me.)
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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (An assault on the mind. Scary.)
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Lonleyache (Bad ending, I think I get it, it's just stupid.)
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Pretty
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Maggie Moneyeyes (Good writing, twilght zonesque, plot just ok)-
World of the Myth (Good, Dark, simple)
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LibraryThing member Scribble.Orca
Some of us are still gallivanting around the cave, some of us are chained to the floor examining shadows. And some of us exist inside the consciousness of a malevolent artificial intelligence that derives its only amusement, diversion from unceasing monotony, in merciless torment of five surviving
the scientist, the idealist, the existentialist, the prostitute and the Messiah.
The only escape is annihilation, and it is left to the Messiah to condemn himself to eternal suffering.
You're excused if you think I'm discussing The Matrix - my first thought on reading the title story is that the 1999 film owes its central ideas and plot to Harlan Ellison. But Ellison owes the juxtaposition of his primary characters to the Bible: AM, the self-realised AI trapped forever within circuitry is a vengeful God punishing humanity for its own actualisation - would God exist if humans could not imagine the concept? Ted is the lamb sacrificed to release his fellow companions from the hell of AM's nightmare world - the atonement of sins he provides is escape from AM's hell, while he remains to endure it. Is Ellen the Magdalene - not unless you accept the Magdalene really was a prostitute, although Ellen proclaims that she was chaste prior to AM's perversion of her psyche; the scientist becomes the simian, the idealist apathetic and the existentialist remains ambiguous. Analogy between the disciples and these other characters would be a stretch of the imagination unjustified, however the three are willing participants in the sacrifice of the Messiah.
Ellison's prose is a picture. I won't paraphrase - I couldn't do him justice:
Gigantic. The words immense, monstrous, grotesque, massive, swollen, overpowering, beyond description. There on a mound rising above us, the bird of winds heaved with its own irregular breathing, its snake neck arching up into the gloom beneath the North Pole, supporting a head as large as a Tudor mansion; a beak that opened slowly as the jaws of the most monstrous crocodile ever conceived, sensuously; ridges of tufted flesh puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view down into a glacial crevasse, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly; it heaved once more, and lifted its great sweat-colored wings in a movement that was certainly a shrug. Then it settled and slept. Talons. Fangs. Nails. Blades. It slept....
...And we came, finally, to the ice caverns. Horizonless thousands of miles in which the ice had formed in blue and silver flashes, where novas lived in the glass. The downdropping stalactites as thick and glorious as diamonds that had been made to run like jelly and then solidified in graceful eternities of smooth, sharp perfection.
Today was the first time I read Harlan Ellison. It won't be the last.
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humans:the scientist, the idealist, the existentialist, the prostitute and the Messiah.
The only escape is annihilation, and it is left to the Messiah to condemn himself to eternal suffering.
You're excused if you think I'm discussing The Matrix - my first thought on reading the title story is that the 1999 film owes its central ideas and plot to Harlan Ellison. But Ellison owes the juxtaposition of his primary characters to the Bible: AM, the self-realised AI trapped forever within circuitry is a vengeful God punishing humanity for its own actualisation - would God exist if humans could not imagine the concept? Ted is the lamb sacrificed to release his fellow companions from the hell of AM's nightmare world - the atonement of sins he provides is escape from AM's hell, while he remains to endure it. Is Ellen the Magdalene - not unless you accept the Magdalene really was a prostitute, although Ellen proclaims that she was chaste prior to AM's perversion of her psyche; the scientist becomes the simian, the idealist apathetic and the existentialist remains ambiguous. Analogy between the disciples and these other characters would be a stretch of the imagination unjustified, however the three are willing participants in the sacrifice of the Messiah.
Ellison's prose is a picture. I won't paraphrase - I couldn't do him justice:
Gigantic. The words immense, monstrous, grotesque, massive, swollen, overpowering, beyond description. There on a mound rising above us, the bird of winds heaved with its own irregular breathing, its snake neck arching up into the gloom beneath the North Pole, supporting a head as large as a Tudor mansion; a beak that opened slowly as the jaws of the most monstrous crocodile ever conceived, sensuously; ridges of tufted flesh puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view down into a glacial crevasse, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly; it heaved once more, and lifted its great sweat-colored wings in a movement that was certainly a shrug. Then it settled and slept. Talons. Fangs. Nails. Blades. It slept....
...And we came, finally, to the ice caverns. Horizonless thousands of miles in which the ice had formed in blue and silver flashes, where novas lived in the glass. The downdropping stalactites as thick and glorious as diamonds that had been made to run like jelly and then solidified in graceful eternities of smooth, sharp perfection.
Today was the first time I read Harlan Ellison. It won't be the last.
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LibraryThing member Nickidemus
The Basics
A collection of short fiction by Harlan Ellison in which the title story is one of his most famous. It follows a group of people who are the last humans on earth. They are being kept alive by a supercomputer named AM, who also tortures them for his amusement. The situation is incredibly
My Thoughts
I want to focus at first on “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”, the title story, for this review. It’s incredibly famous. When people talk about Ellison, this story inevitably comes up. I kept managing to skip all around it, even with my exhaustive reading of everything Ellison I could get my hands on. It was starting to get ridiculous. I’d listened to an audio book version, read by Ellison himself. I’d watched a let’s play of the damn video game. It was time I sat down and read it.
And it’s great. It really is. It’s as twisted and frightening and dark as its reputation says. I will say there are stories of his I like more, but I think that’s what happens when hype interferes. I see the reason for the popularity of it and the potential it held to be expanded on the way it was with the game, and I have no real complaints. Aside from maybe it’s the highlight of the collection. This book as a whole is very slim, and the publishers are counting on readers buying it for that story.
I especially liked “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes”, another strong story. “World of the Myth” was a great concept with some problematic sexism. I hate noticing these things, but this is what happens when you read older fiction. That has become my mantra. “Delusions of a Dragon Slayer” seems like it’s about to head down the same, sad road, and then it takes a turn that I really liked that makes me wish Ellison could always write those situations that way. The rest of the stories were middle of the road for me, and I wanted more.
So in essence, a collection with a classic story trying to ride that classic story for all it’s worth. And it could’ve been more.
Final Rating
4/5
A collection of short fiction by Harlan Ellison in which the title story is one of his most famous. It follows a group of people who are the last humans on earth. They are being kept alive by a supercomputer named AM, who also tortures them for his amusement. The situation is incredibly
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hopeless, but is there still escape left for them?My Thoughts
I want to focus at first on “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”, the title story, for this review. It’s incredibly famous. When people talk about Ellison, this story inevitably comes up. I kept managing to skip all around it, even with my exhaustive reading of everything Ellison I could get my hands on. It was starting to get ridiculous. I’d listened to an audio book version, read by Ellison himself. I’d watched a let’s play of the damn video game. It was time I sat down and read it.
And it’s great. It really is. It’s as twisted and frightening and dark as its reputation says. I will say there are stories of his I like more, but I think that’s what happens when hype interferes. I see the reason for the popularity of it and the potential it held to be expanded on the way it was with the game, and I have no real complaints. Aside from maybe it’s the highlight of the collection. This book as a whole is very slim, and the publishers are counting on readers buying it for that story.
I especially liked “Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes”, another strong story. “World of the Myth” was a great concept with some problematic sexism. I hate noticing these things, but this is what happens when you read older fiction. That has become my mantra. “Delusions of a Dragon Slayer” seems like it’s about to head down the same, sad road, and then it takes a turn that I really liked that makes me wish Ellison could always write those situations that way. The rest of the stories were middle of the road for me, and I wanted more.
So in essence, a collection with a classic story trying to ride that classic story for all it’s worth. And it could’ve been more.
Final Rating
4/5
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LibraryThing member solitaryfossil
My first reading of Ellison, and I was blown away. He’s a pretty big deal in the Science Fiction world, and I’ll read more of his books. His style is brutal, jarring, fast-moving and chaotic.
My two favorites from this collection are “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and “Lonelyache.”
My two favorites from this collection are “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” and “Lonelyache.”
LibraryThing member Lyndatrue
I read "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" first in "If" and it haunted me. It haunts me still. This small collection also includes another of my favorites, "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" (the nearest thing to reality he ever wrote). There are all those introductions to all those stories; always one of
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my favorite things about buying a collection of his work, those introductions. Show Less
LibraryThing member SkuldOMG
Bought this one because I was interested in the title story. Didn't disappoint! There were only two stories that didn't click with me, the others were really good. Had some Stephen Kingish moments, especially in Pretty Maggie Money-Eyes, which is always a plus.
LibraryThing member Savagemalloy
I rarely read fiction, let alone scifi, but it's an interesting diversion recommended by an online athiest.
LibraryThing member eenerd
Wow, pretty crazy stuff. The whole deal with the crazy computer was super creepy and entirely awesome.
LibraryThing member CarmenMilligan
13 pages of WEIRD.
***SPOILERS***
Here are the characters:
•AM, the supercomputer which brought about the near-extinction of humanity.
•Gorrister, once an idealist and pacifist, before AM made him apathetic and listless.
•Benny, once a brilliant, handsome scientist, and has been mutilated and
•Nimdok (not his real name), an older man who persuades the rest of the group to go on a hopeless journey in search of canned food. In the audiobook read by Ellison, he is given a German accent.
•Ellen, the only woman. She claims to once have been chaste ("twice removed"), but AM altered her mind so that she became desperate for sexual intercourse. Described by Ted as having ebony skin, she is the only member of the group whose ethnicity or racial identity is explicitly mentioned.
•Ted, the narrator and youngest of the group. He claims to be totally unaltered, mentally or physically, by AM, and thinks the other four hate and envy him.
Basically, there is a world war. The US, China and Russia build supercomputers to run the war for efficiently for them. One of the computers becomes sentient, absorbs the other two and annihilates all people on earth, save these five. Because the computer is so angry, it tortures the humans day and night, after being able to extend their lives into an almost immortal state. The story takes place 109 years after their capture.
There are references here to God and Jesus and that got me thinking that this may be an allegory for Christianity. Each character represents a deadly sin:
Lust - Ellen has become a whore
Gluttony - Benny reverts to cannibalism
Greed - Nimdok - leads them on an extended search for canned goods
Sloth - Gorrister - lazy and uncaring
Wrath - AM embodies anger
Envy - Benny's large penis is a point of contention
Pride - Ted is quite sure that he is the only one completely unaffected
With that foundation, AM is God. He creates, destroys, and knows all things. He can get into their minds and manipulate their feelings. In the end, Ted could represent Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice to give the others freedom.
I have no idea if this is what Ellison intended, or if I am full of hooey. After all, sometimes a soft jelly thing with rubbery appendages is just that: a soft jelly think with rubbery appendages.
Recommended for the weirdness factor alone.
***SPOILERS***
Here are the characters:
•AM, the supercomputer which brought about the near-extinction of humanity.
•Gorrister, once an idealist and pacifist, before AM made him apathetic and listless.
•Benny, once a brilliant, handsome scientist, and has been mutilated and
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transformed so that he resembles a grotesque simian, as well as having lost his sanity completely and regressed to a childlike temperament. •Nimdok (not his real name), an older man who persuades the rest of the group to go on a hopeless journey in search of canned food. In the audiobook read by Ellison, he is given a German accent.
•Ellen, the only woman. She claims to once have been chaste ("twice removed"), but AM altered her mind so that she became desperate for sexual intercourse. Described by Ted as having ebony skin, she is the only member of the group whose ethnicity or racial identity is explicitly mentioned.
•Ted, the narrator and youngest of the group. He claims to be totally unaltered, mentally or physically, by AM, and thinks the other four hate and envy him.
Basically, there is a world war. The US, China and Russia build supercomputers to run the war for efficiently for them. One of the computers becomes sentient, absorbs the other two and annihilates all people on earth, save these five. Because the computer is so angry, it tortures the humans day and night, after being able to extend their lives into an almost immortal state. The story takes place 109 years after their capture.
There are references here to God and Jesus and that got me thinking that this may be an allegory for Christianity. Each character represents a deadly sin:
Lust - Ellen has become a whore
Gluttony - Benny reverts to cannibalism
Greed - Nimdok - leads them on an extended search for canned goods
Sloth - Gorrister - lazy and uncaring
Wrath - AM embodies anger
Envy - Benny's large penis is a point of contention
Pride - Ted is quite sure that he is the only one completely unaffected
With that foundation, AM is God. He creates, destroys, and knows all things. He can get into their minds and manipulate their feelings. In the end, Ted could represent Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice to give the others freedom.
I have no idea if this is what Ellison intended, or if I am full of hooey. After all, sometimes a soft jelly thing with rubbery appendages is just that: a soft jelly think with rubbery appendages.
Recommended for the weirdness factor alone.
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LibraryThing member CliffBurns
The other tales in the collection pale in comparison when held up alongside the title story. This is one for the ages--Ellison has forged an original, literate offering that stands with the finest short fiction of the 20th century.
LibraryThing member espadana
An uneven collection, and frankly dated at times, but when Ellison is good, he’s very good. I hesitated between three and four stars, but the title story made me go for four - it’s a classic, and rightly so.
LibraryThing member jefware
Various stories yelling at the heart of the universe.
LibraryThing member jalfredb
Short stories. Several I had read in other collections. Always enjoy his tales. Varied focus, but always get your attention, make you react.
LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
I've read this a dozen times over the years. Wow! He has a unique insight into humanity, the future & an extremely imaginative way of putting them together. This is a classic!
LibraryThing member whatsleepsbeneath
I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't finish it. It shouldn't have been too hard, the subject material is right up my alley, and I definitely understand Ellison's place in science fiction, but I just couldn't get into it. I found the writing, at times, to be laughably poor, the ideas atrocious, and worst
Maybe I need to give it time to breathe and revisit it in the future, but for now, it's an absolute dud.
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of all, dull.Maybe I need to give it time to breathe and revisit it in the future, but for now, it's an absolute dud.
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LibraryThing member bdgamer
Ellison is a gifted writer who can make you go from oh-okay to holy-shit-what-did-I-just-read in the span of a few pages.
The titular short story is a brilliant exercise in depravity and hatred--the ending is a masterpiece of torment that will haunt you for a long time to come.
The other stories are
The titular short story is a brilliant exercise in depravity and hatred--the ending is a masterpiece of torment that will haunt you for a long time to come.
The other stories are
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no slouches either. Most of them are too out there and not too memorable to be honest, but they are good reads, nonetheless. His introductions are great, too. Show Less
LibraryThing member Theriq
Sometimes the weirdness overshadows some of the message.
LibraryThing member MarkLacy
I realize I tried to read these stories in a different time, a different era, than when they were written. Having said that, I can be somewhat forgiving. Ellison's style is now dated. But I simply didn't enjoy the stories I read, and couldn't bring myself to finish the book. His autobiographical
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remarks preceding each story didn't endear me toward him either. Of course, I don't have to personally like a writer to like his writing. But his attitudes toward women, and violence toward women, came through in his stories, and that turned me off. Show Less
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
I need to stop reading science fiction classics by men with their casual misogyny. This book goes beyond casual misogyny to glorious rape fantasies. It could be used as a spiritual text for sniveling incel groups. I can almost hear Ellison writing A Boy and His Dog and chuckling over all the ladies
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who were going to get their panties in a twist. Rape funny, he man good. Cue chest thumping. I guess I’m going to have to stick to science fiction by women from now on. Show Less
LibraryThing member Koralis
"AM appeared to us as a burning bush and said we could kill the hurricane bird if we wanted to eat." - Is this a reference to the bible?
Also, I will be throwing out all my electronics thanks to this story. But in all seriousness, I love dystopian genres, and the writing for this was short and to
Also, I will be throwing out all my electronics thanks to this story. But in all seriousness, I love dystopian genres, and the writing for this was short and to
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the point. Great read and free online if you google. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1967
Physical description
8.5 inches
ISBN
1497643074 / 9781497643079