I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison

► Original publication year: 1967
► Original title: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
► Genres: Post-apocalyptic sci-fi, dystopia, speculative fiction, fantasy, cyberpunk.
► Saga: N/A
► Themes: Post-apocalyptic worlds, AI, war, torture, magic, bets. 
► Awards: Hugo [1968]
► Age of author when published: 33 
► Nationality: US-American
► Pages: 152

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

I just read the collection of short stories and I wanted to share with you 10 insights I had about the book and/or the author. 

1. I think the first short story is really good. A classic, a good representation of the genre. A very good story, with elements of horror and sci-fi that were popular at the time the book was published. 

2. The other short stories are not my cup of tea, sadly. Because of that, I don't think I will try Harlan Ellison for quite a while. 

3. I don't think that Harlan Ellison is that good at writing short stories. I'll have to see if he's good at novels. 

4. He's original. He's unique. His ideas are not repetitive and you don't find them just around the corner. technically, I don't think he's that good at writing, too many adjectives and adverbs in some places where they weren't necessary.  
 
5. It can be really difficult to judge a book written more than 50 years ago, but this book is highly criticized for its misogyny. But I wouldn't know. Life was very different half a century ago. 

6. The short stories are all different from each other. This is really remarkable and enjoyable. 

7. The short stories seem to have a good background. It was noticeable for me that the characters had a backstory that was not reflected in the final version of the short stories. 

8. All stories are dark. If you like dark, horror stuff. Go for this. 

9. In the version I read, the author wrote an introduction to each story. I didn't like this. This was distracting to me. 

10. He wrote better characters than most sci-fi writers I have read. 

Harlan Ellison

These are my ratings for each of the short stories of the book. 
  1. "I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream" ★★★★★
  2. "Big Sam Was My Friend" ★★★✩✩
  3. "Eyes of Dust" ★★✩✩✩
  4. "World of the Myth" ★★✩✩✩
  5. "Lonelyache" ★★✩✩✩
  6. "Delusion for Dragonslayer" ★★★✩✩
  7. "Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes" ★★✩✩✩

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