Harlan Ellison was not actually a great writer.

I have just, once again, read "I have no mouth and I must scream". This might be the third or fourth time. I don't really know how many times I've read it, but I never seem to remember it later, even though I try. It just doesn't make much of an impression on me. Most of his short stories are like that; I remember the one about the dog, mostly because I learned beforehand that he hated women and that story makes that quite clear but also because I like dogs and think the ending is quite a reasonable decision for the protagonist to make. Awkward to agree with that asshole, of course.

So "I have no mouth but I must scream" - ok, I just don't think it's great. It's apparently memorable to lots of people, but I feel like that's mostly because it's about torture which most people don't get a lot of fictional exposure to, and about AI, and AI is a hot topic right now.

I might find the torture unremarkable because I read far worse as a kid reading my first communion present from my aunt. "The lives of the saints and the martyrs". I learned a LOT about torture from my Catholic childhood. I reckon kids today on the rotten side of the Internet see more graphic stuff, but I doubt it's actually worse than what was written in that little navy blue book with the gilt edges. His depiction was weirdly tame? I guess. It just didn't strike me as being quite the worst thing that could happen to a person.

Anyways. I'll try and remember this time so I don't end up re-reading the damn thing again, but I swear that's exactly what I thought last time too.