halfass_reviewer 's review for:

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

3.0

dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I picked this short story up for a variety of reasons. The main one being it kept popping as one of the most horrific stories of the 20th century (newsflash this is like the third story I read that readers gave that acclamation to and the stories didn't even leave me in deep thought). The story was fine, the concept was unique and it was a worthy read, but the narrator. God it was like a college student who had just been given the story two seconds before they had to record and then they just submitted it. The narrator stumbled over their words, skipped words, and mispronounced words. Honestly, if I hadn't decided to read along with the story while listening to it I may have lost a majority of the plot. So yeah I did knock the story down a rating for this godawful narration. Other than that I really did enjoy the story and am glad I finally read it. I get why, at the time of reading it, this would've left readers in deep thought and horrified. The most unfortunate part though is that, with the way AI is unfortunately going, by 2050 I can see this being a very real possibility. Using advanced computers to fight wars and then them computers becoming sentient and either enslaving the world or outright killing us all, much like AM did.