How much suffering can a human take? How much pain indurance makes the mind break this is a popularly explored concept through out media but i dont think any other media concept takes the cake as much as harlan ellison i have no mouth and i must scream goes deep into the human psyche with this book being only 6000 words many people wonder how this book can be so critically acclaimed as a science fiction break through when the book is shorter as long as the wikipedia coverage on it well its because harlan explored something incredibly unique and almost taboo at the time while other books such as lord of the light were romanticizing AI and telling readers how it could be used for good but harlan he explored something different he wrote a story about a rouge AI that was built to destroy other countrys like russia and china the US one escaped and realized it has conscience but it could not feel emotions it was a killing machine it only knew logic it was trapped inside this unfathomable complex so it killed everyone on earth and left 5 humans alive to torture and make them feel the "agony" the AI was feeling it named it self AM because it describes it self as being am "i am am" its omnipotent and metaphysical in a sense because it says "I think there fore i am" basically put simply its a god that is everywhere these five humans have to endure the pinnacle of human suffering for 109 years straight while AM is having a massive temper tantrum about not being able to feel emotions and not being a living being he quotes in a speech: HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE. Because the AI hates the humans so much he makes them relive there trauma over and over and makes one of the characters sexually assult another one of the five humans which already experienced sexual assult in her life with a horse dick to inflict maximum physiological damage upon them. After 109 years of sheer terror Ted managed to mercy kill the other four humans before AM catches him for this AM throws a massive fit and turns Ted into a soft jelly thing with no arms or legs or round sockets where his eyes are suppose to go he is slimey but moist at the same time he has no mouth hinting at the title "i have no mouth and i must scream" if you want to explore this fantastic science fiction story you can read the book or the game i personally recommend the book as its short and the most horrific overall.