Customer Reviews

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Buy everything that Harlan Ellison has ever wrote. He is the greatest short story writer of the 20th Century and the 21st century, a true American treasure, and "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" is utterly amazing, shocking, hopeful, and makes a reader feel absolutely, fully human. The world is a better place for this book, and people are better for having read Ellison.

His best are among humanity's greatest.He is largely unappreciated.The titular story should leave you in tears.This anthology is mid Ellison.

A wonderful book, it arrived early then I thought which was a wonderful surprise and was in perfect, new shape.

A wonderful addition to any Ellison collection.

The All-Singing, All Dancing, Extremely Entertaining Audio Ellison#1:
Having recently purchased -- and seriously enjoyed the hell out of -- Vol. 4 & vol. 5 of Ellison's "The Voice From the Edge" series of Audio book/story & essay collections, I was moved to listen to the first three volumes (purchased as each one came out, earlier this century). I have to admit, like most readers, I have been emboldened and tapdanced by the intelligentsia, so I've always taken it for granted that the title story of this collection, "I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream", is (in addition to being an oft-reprinted storie, the latest reprint being in the Library of America's AMERICAN FANTASTIC TALES: 1940s to Now) in the top 10 of best Ellison stories ever. After many decades (in which, one hopes, some wisdom was achieved), I still see it as one of Ellison best, but certainly not one of his top ten best. Even Ellison, in an introduction, says that he feels the last story in this collection ("Grail") is a better-written, better-told, tale (and he's right). That said, "I Have No Mouth..." _does_ remain one of the starkest, bloodiest, most grim post-apocalypse stories ever written (think about that for a minute, and you'll understand how dark this story really is). The first line -- "Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported --hanging high above us in the computer chamber, and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern." -- is the beginning of a relentless barrage of adjectives and images that deluge the reader (or listener) like an nuclear attack. And Ellison's full-on reading of the story holds nothing back. Fortunately, the next offering, "'Repent Harlequin!' Said the Tick Tock Man" (one of the 12-most reprinted stories in the English language) is also one of Ellison's most comic, and whimsical stories (even though it deals with the importance of civil disobedieance). And Ellison lets loose with a wide range of voices and sounds, becoming a one-man radio show as he pulls out all the stops to deliver a showstopper of reading (and this is only the second story in the collection)!
"The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke" and "The Time of the Eye" (the third and fifth stories, respectively) are what have been referred to (in my other reviews of these Ellison audio books) as "entertainments": nothing earthshattering, but still enjoyable listening, with the first story dealing with justice brought to an aging Nazis (by an unusual source) and the second dealing with madness. "Laugh Track", a story that would make my list of top 50 Ellison stories, is not only one of about...12 absolutely hilarious tales written by Ellison, it is also one of his most hilarious readings (and I include the readings of "'Repent..." and "Prince Myshkin" in that assessment). In a story that skewers the television industry -- and deals with the ghost of the Italian protagonist's aunt (who makes her self known in a most unusual way) -- Ellison-the-closet-comedian pulls out all the stops and manages to fit in anecdotes, puns, whimsical asides, and sound gags, all while spinning one funny-as-all-get-out yarn about a Television writer/producer, the strange doings behind the scenes (in the technichian's booths and in the offices of the producers) and a loveable aunt named, Babe. "The Very Last Day of a Good Woman" is another "entertainment," and probably the least worthy of the stories included here (another instance where I would've chosen some other tale..."Ediolons," "Mom", or a story from MINDFIELDS), but it's short, and doesn't subtract from this powerful first collection. A Hugo award-winning novelette (which was written at the same time Ellison penned his WGA-award-winning teleplay of the same name for "The Twilight Zone"), "Paladin of the Lost Hour" is a classic of Ellison's later years, and one of his most powerful stories about friendship and personal responsibility.
It involves a black Vietnam War veteran, Billy Kinneta, who meets and befriends an old man who is mugged in a cemetery, while visiting the grave of his long-dead wife. Kinneta discovers that the old man is charged with protecting a magical stopwatch, which contains one very special, very powerful hour of time. Ellison's reading is a heartstopper: funny in all the right spots, energized during the action scenes, and touching, at just the right times. Good stuff. The Nebula-award winning "A Boy and His Dog" is fairly well known (it was even made into an independent movie in the '70s), but for those not in the know: it is an apolcalyptic story set after the last World War, when the surface of the earth is populated mostly by savage boys (and one or two men), who rape (when they find a surviving female) and pillage and plunder and survive as best they can. Some of the boys have dogs with whom they have formed a telepathic link. Genetically altered dogs, which are as intelligent as the boys (sometimes much more intelligent than their human partners). The protagonist of the story, Vic, is partnered with Blood, a wise-cracking and very intelligent dog. Below the surface, there are a few, make-shift cities that survived the nuclear holocaust. And when their paths cross with that of a female, Quilla June, who has "come up" to look for a bit of adventure, the very survival of Vic and Blood is soon at stake. Even though it is set in a future where women are treated like chattel (or worse) by surviving, savage young boys, and even though it is a desolate landscape (and the Downunders are, in their own way, much worse), in addition to being action-packed, this story -- in which the humans are savages and the dogs are more civilized and intelligent --is one of Ellison's most compassionate. To wrap it all up, Ellison reads "Grail", the story mentioned in the introduction to "I Have No Mouth...", and (through a heartfelt, well-performed reading) proves that his story of a man in search of True Love (which, in the story, is a tangible thing, like the Holy Grail), who traverses continents and makes pacts with demons, is, indeed, one of his best stories (right up there with "'Repent...", "Jeffty...", "Soft Monkey", "A Boy and His Dog", "The Function of Dreamsleep" and about forty-three others). A powerful ending to an audio book filled with powerful stories and equally powerful readings.

P.S. Ignore the reviews by the mooks from Oz and Illinois, who gave it one star based on their lack of understanding (the perils of opening up the web to dweebs whose life experience revolves around gameboy, video games like "Doom" and "peekachoo") and the vast empty space between each of their ears. Following their advice, and/or their leader, will surely result in your intellectual doom and downfall.

I got this collection of stories mainly for the title story "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream." The title story is probably the only good one in this entire collection. Every story just goes on and on and on and it eventually catches itself and goes back to the original point. There's one story Harlan wrote based on a series of dreams and that's how it reads, like a series of dreams. It's continuous fractured train of thought that's more confusing than any David Lynch movie I've ever seen. The title story was very interesting and didn't read like his others. It has no dialogue and creates no setting, which may be a bad thing, but in this situation it's actually really effective. The villain AM is way scarier than HAL 9000 as far as AI villains go. If you want to read the title story, just see if you can find it online, I've heard that you can find the whole story somewhere on the internet and that's the only thing worth reading. Each story has a little foreword that does not help the stories in any way. The story that was a series of dreams, it says that in the foreword and I was not impressed. So if you read Harlan Ellison and you like his stuff then by all means go ahead and get this, but if you are interested in something new, just read the title story on the internet and save yourself the trouble of spending your hard earned money on it and waiting for it to arrive in the mail only to find that this book is a total bomb.

I have just stumbled upon this book that I have forgotten to read from years ago.

Now however, I see that almost all other Harlan Ellison books already have a Kindle Edition, BUT NOT THIS BOOK!

I must be honest, i don't generally read fiction. After about 20 pages i generally start to wonder why i'm reading the title, because it's not real. Sometimes i can stick to it because it is fun. This is not one of those titles.

I bought this title, because of the title story and given that 1) it had been made into a game, 2) it was an acclaimed game, and 3) an acclaimed title (it won the Hugo Award, whatever that means), so i figured i couldn't go wrong. Also, some research in Harlan Ellison made me respect him and curious of what he's written.

Here is why i didn't like it - Short stories, means that i shouldn't be reaching my 20 page limit, because it's ... well short, by the second story, filled with generalities about life as a traveling circus freak, and i couldn't take it anymore. The setting wasn't being made out to be anything, but a form of generalities. The element of SciFi is used to explain that things are different, but really they are not. And last, though certainly not least, you just don't care about the characters.

Now I've talked this over with one person that does like SciFi and (reading) fiction and we concluded that nothing was here that made this intriguing, or in anyway rewarding. It's not even scifi, so much as horror with time ambiguous setting which by definition results in the interpretation "future" although this does not of itself add anything to the story.

Now, that was the second story that made me so ... angry, the first story (the one the volume is named after, and won the award) was quite good, though did not warrant the expense. Personally, i feel it could have been fleshed out more, because there was a great setting there, but it felt wasted. I hear that Mr Ellison sues people and i can't help but wonder if that is why there are no other reviews on this item :S (but then that was something about his character that intrigued me, so maybe i have to take this risk).

I'm sure others will like the stories, like i said, the tinge of the waste of money was not sufficient for me to continue because the escalating commitment issue that is the waste of time. If you have however read the review this far, you may enjoy the title ... because Mr Ellison definitely writes better than i can criticize his work. Oh yes, i also failed to find much humor, dark or otherwise in this title, which means i may simply lack the frame of mind.

I'm hoping this review encourages others to contradict me so i can learn what i missed.