I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream Review

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Buckle up, everybody, because this is probably the most horrifying sci-fi short story I’ve ever read in my life. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is also definitely up there, but this is on a whole other level.

This story combines elements of science fiction as well as post-apocalyptic fiction. Published in 1967 in IF: Worlds of Science Fiction, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream follows five people who are tortured by a supercomputer. In the aftermath of World War III, the vengeful computer destroys all of humanity except for these five people as punishment after the supcomputer became sentient. One of them, Ted, narrates their quest for survival in a huge underground confinement that the supercomputer created. The story won the Hugo Award in 1968.

Not to spoil anything (the ending might be familiar to you anyway), but this has to be my favorite in sci-fi horror. Part of it was because I absolutely loved the concept, especially now that AI has become such a big topic. It makes this story all the more prevalent and even adds to the horror in this case. I also think that it speaks to a lot of the fear surrounding technology that was common during this period in sci-fi writing. The story becomes a classic example of our fear as human beings against what we create and its potential consequences.

I also really enjoyed the writing in this piece. It used description in the best way possible by getting into Ted’s headspace as much as possible and diving into the horror of the situation. A lot of what we get then is imagery that digs into the senses and deliberately fills you with horror. I included the example below.

“AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. AM said it with the bubbling thickness of my lungs filling with phlegm, drowning me from within. … All to bring me to full realization of why it had done this to the five of us; why it had saved us for himself. We had given AM sentience. Inadvertently, of course, but sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn’t God; he was a machine. We had created him to think, but there was nothing it could do with that creativity.”

Would I still read the story again despite it changing me forever? Definitely. Though I would need to read something else lighter afterwards. I instead chose to read Jerome Bixby’s “It’s A Good Life” for my next story, which I plan to review next week!

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