For this installment of our weekly book reviews from Booklist, the American Library Association’s nationally distributed book and media review publication, we have James Gardner’s review of “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, first published July 20, 2026, in Booklist Online.
Enjoy.
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”
By Harlan Ellison. Sept. 2026. 144p. Union Square, paper, $17.99
This moment in time feels like the right time for this re-release of a multiple award-winning writer’s most highly regarded short story. First published in 1967, Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” is regarded as both classic and prescient. This tale of an insane supercomputer that mercilessly tortures the last five living humans by altering their minds, bodies, and environment seems especially poignant in a world where artificial intelligence and social media dominate our lives. Along with Ellison’s story, this book also features analysis from J. Michael Straczynski, a writer, producer, and executor of Ellison’s estate. In one humorous essay, Straczynski even feeds “I Have No Mouth” into an AI to show how it handles a tale where it’s the villain. Along with Straczynski’s musings, the book also includes Ellison’s biographical writing, which reveals a cantankerous personality as notorious as his fiction. Straczynski’s presentation of Ellison and his ideas is made for readers of the kind of critical theory that reverse-engineers how some sf stories become classics.— James Gardner
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