I had heard about this story and recently got a chance to finally read it and wanted to dicuss it a little bit.
Very dark, and rather hellish. Depressed me a little, and I’m used to reading Dark literature.
Some interesting points.
It never says if AM can actually manipulate reality through some godlike method, or if the last five are actually plugged into the computer via the matrix. I assumed the latter when I heard the Premise, but I’m not so sure.
I kept wondering why they never just killed themselves and got it over with. They said they tried, but the ending seems to indicate they didn’t have the guts to do it previously, not that they weren’t actually able to do so.
I kept wondering just exactly how AM got ahold of these five in particular, but the story never says. This ties into number #1. For a military calculation computer, AM seems to have some amazing abilities, but aparently only underground. It can grab 5 people but is insane with the fact it can’t affect anything on the surface(other then destorying the surface). I have wonder if the main characters aren’t actuall just brains in a jar, or real at all. Perhaps AI’s created for the sake of giving AM something to play with.
The premise seems just a little improbable(to say the least). So WW3 comes along, and US, Russia and China all build calculating supercomputers because War is so complex. Apparently the war is so long and so complex that not only do they need these computers, they have time to build them deep under the surface of the earth and keep expanding them(It says something about them honeycombing the interior) until they eventually manage to link together one big machine(or network) and in essance, become one, which then becomes self aware and decides to kill everyone(The text says something about feeding kill orders), implying the use of nuclear weapons for all out genocide.
I understand that the story was written during the 1960’s and back then, computers were a lot bigger then now for the same processing power, but as is my understanding, I find it rather hard to believe that WW3(particulary between three nuclear powers) would last so long and be so complex that they would have either the need, time or resources to build such a gigantic computing system(before somebody got deperate and let the nukes fly). Moreso, I don’t think they’d be physically allowed to link up(if they computers are that close, you’d think they’d focus on blowing up the other nations AM’s). Perhaps it had some skynet like manufacutering capabilities but there was no indication.
Totally. It’s supposed to make you shit your pants and cry yourself to sleep. That’s what it did for me anyway. Single most terrifying thing I’ve read.
Also remember that everything Harlan knew about science in 1966 could be rolled up into a ball and inserted into the period at the end of this sentence (and still have room for two caraway seeds and an agent’s heart).
I won’t go that far, but Ellison definatly has a sense for the disturbing. I’d suggest a movie or even a twilight zone episode, but I don’t think it could be done and be nearly as effective as the story.
I do have a slight problem of nitpicking things, even if I love them. I also wasn’t around during the 1960’s, so maybe I can’t relate to how much he could have been expected to know about computers and nuclear war in general.
I’ve heard there was a computer game made of it, but so far I’ve found that it’s almost impossible to find(and $32 seems a little high for what I’ve heard about it).
Not to my knowledge. I didn’t have too hard a time finding it, particulary considering it’s supposed to be one of the 10 most reprinted stories ever and won a Hugo award.
Is it? I know one of his stories had a lot to do with it, but as far as I can tell, the only thing it has to do with the Terminator is the fact a military computer becomes self aware and nukes the human race out of existance. Other then that, I can’t find much in common. Skynet seemed more efficent and cold about the entire thing. Killing John was nothing personal, just something that gurenteed victory for skynet. AM was deeply and perhaps utterly insane with hatred, something you don’t usually associate with computers. It seemed to be deeply personal for AM.
This is an old list, so there are undoubtedly some more anthologies that contain the story.
The Terminator stole its ideas from many places (and I mean that as a compliment), and one of them is Ellison’s scripts for a couple of Outer Limits episodes. It’s not useful to say that any one story was the source of the ideas for The Terminator. It’s hard to know if “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” was one of the sources for the movie.
This is one of my favorite short stories. I think the above posters are correct. It is not really supposed to be a “hard” science fiction story. I’ve always thought he was trying to make the reader think and feel more about the people involved than the tech.
This was the story that convinced me Ellison wasn’t all bluster. His forwards and prefaces are sometimes more entertaining than his stories… but when he’s on, his fiction is ferocious.
This was a very strong, even devastating read for me the first time. I agree that the tech aspects don’t make much sense when examined closely, but the point is something else: The characters and their emotional response to the situation. The horror of it. Man’s ability to create hell for himself.
I’d like to, but I don’t know if the price justifies the purchase. $32 + shipping seems a bit steep for a nearly 10 year old game that apparently has quite a few unfixed bugs(or so I’ve heard).
Not that this will answer your technical questions, but Ellison makes the point very sharply in an intro on a recording of this story that Ted (the narrator, the “I”) is not totally to be trusted, and in some cases utright lies (his assessment of Ellen (or was it Helen?), for example.
FWIW, I accept that these are the last five real people, not brains in a jar, what-have-you.
P. S. FWIU, most of Ellison’s basis for suing over The Terminator was its similarity to his story, “Soldier,” specifically as it aired as an episode of The Outer Limits.