I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Last night I was reading a short story called "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison, in the Essential Ellison collection. It's a genuinely shocking story about a vast sentient supercomputer called AM which hates the humans who created it and wipes out all life on Earth, except for five people who it imprisons in it's underground chambers and caverns, where it gives them almost eternal life, however this is merely so that it can subject them to every kind of physical and psychological torment imaginable, for the rest of time, for no other reason than the computer's own amusement. It was a very good story, but surprisingly violent. I remember listening to a radio adaptation of it a few years ago, in a series of radio dramas based on science-fiction horror stories. The story was also turned into a video game, with Ellison himself providing the voice of the computer.

In contrast to that I read a genuinely touching story, also by Ellison, called "In Lonely Lands", in which an old man lives on Mars, waiting out the last days of his life in the company of his best friend, who is an alien. It's a really moving story about friendship.

It was another very quiet day at work again. It'll soon be the weekend anyway, so that should be good.