"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a postapocalyptic science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story.
Ellison wrote "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" in a single night in 1966, making virtually no changes since the first draft. He derived th...
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"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a postapocalyptic science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story.
Ellison wrote "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" in a single night in 1966, making virtually no changes since the first draft. He derived the story's title, as well as inspiration for this story, from a drawing by a friend, William Rotsler.
The story takes place over a hundred years after the near-complete destruction of humanity. The Cold War had escalated into a world war, fought mainly between China, Russia, and the United States. As the war progressed, the three warring nations each created a super-computer capable of running the war more efficiently than humans. The machines are each referred to as "AM," which had originally stood for "Allied Mastercomputer," and then was...
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