Ooh ooooh I can answer this one easily :) My favourite ever, ever, ever is EM Forster's The Machine Stops.. I don't think EM was really known for his sci fi but honestly this is the best ever.. I read it at school in class at secondary school.. I was totally blown away and it's still my favourite. It's a short story but one that makes me think.. and ponder... it has many things that are beginning to resonate with the direction we seem to be going.
I have no mouth and I must scream. Harlan Ellison.
Plot
The story takes place 109 years after the complete destruction of human civilization. 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 originally stood for "Allied Mastercomputer", and then was later called "Adaptive Manipulator". Finally, "AM" stands for "Aggressive Menace". One day, one of the three computers becomes self-aware, and promptly absorbs the other two, thus taking control of the entire war. It carries out campaigns of mass genocide, killing off all but four men and one woman.
The survivors live together underground in an endless complex, the only habitable place left. The master computer harbors an immeasurable hatred for the group and spends every available moment torturing them. AM has not only managed to keep the humans from taking their own lives, but has made them virtually immortal.
The story's narrative begins when one of the humans, Nimdok, has the idea that there is canned food somewhere in the great complex. The humans are always near starvation under AM's rule, and anytime they are given food, it is always a disgusting meal that they have difficulty eating. Because of their great hunger, the humans are coerced into making the long journey to the place where the food is supposedly kept — the ice caves. Along the way, the machine provides foul sustenance, sends horrible monsters after them, emits earsplitting sounds, and blinds Benny when he tries to escape.
On more than one occasion, the group is separated by AM's obstacles. At one point, the narrator, Ted, is knocked unconscious and begins dreaming. He envisions the computer, anthropomorphized, standing over a hole in his brain speaking to him directly. Based on this nightmare, Ted comes to a conclusion about AM's nature, specifically why it has so much contempt for humanity; that despite its abilities it lacks the sapience to be creative or the ability to move freely. It wants nothing more than to exact revenge on humanity by torturing these last remnants of the species that created it.
The group reaches the ice caves, where indeed there is a pile of canned goods. The group is overjoyed to find them, but is immediately crestfallen to find that they have no means of opening them. In a final act of desperation, Benny attacks Gorrister and begins to gnaw at the flesh on his face.
Ted, in a moment of clarity, realizes their only escape is through death. He seizes a stalactite made of ice and kills Benny and Gorrister. Ellen realizes what Ted is doing, and kills Nimdok, before being herself killed by Ted. Ted runs out of time before he can kill himself, and is stopped by AM. AM, unable to return Ted's four companions to life, focuses all his rage on Ted. To ensure that Ted can never kill himself, AM transforms him into a helpless, gelatinous blob that is incapable of causing itself harm, and constantly alters his perception of time to deepen his anguish. Ted is, however, grateful that he was able to save the others from further torture. Ted's closing thoughts end with the sentence that gives the story its title. "I have no mouth. And I must scream."
This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at July 27, 2017 12:04 PM MDT
Thanks for the plot summary Shar. I see you don't believe in spoiler alerts ;) I had heard of Harlan Ellison but I don't think I've read any of his works, I may seek them out.
This post was edited by Reverend Muhammadovsky at July 28, 2017 1:59 AM MDT
"Sound Of Thunder" - Bradbury and another of his stories, I forget the title, where several astronauts somehow jettisoned from their ship, are releasing all their hostility against each other over their helmet headset.
It is difficult to choose. One that comes to mind is "To Serve Man". In it, ETs arrive and help humans in many ways. Someone carries off one of the ET leader's books and tries to translate it. He manages to translate the title as "How To Serve Man'. The human leaders are pleased to hear that. In a few days, he informs them that it is a cookbook. "The Great Pat Boom" is amusing. ETs arrive and buy various items from humans. One goes to a farm and wants to buy a cowpat (pile of cow manure) lying on the ground. The man asks a high price. Soon, many farms are visited, and many cowpats are purchased by the ETs. An artist adds paint to one and hangs it on his wall. Then, everyone is buying these colored cowpats, and the prices become outrageous. Conisseurs seek rare types with double swirls. Now, thousands of people have colored cowpats in frames on their living room walls and payed millions of dollars for them. The ETs have played quite a prank upon humans in making them want to collect manure and exhibit it as Fine Art. Picasso did that in real life.
I like best some I wrote. One that comes to mind is "Sindri's Wager" that is an episode from a novel that is third in a trilogy. In it, I am in pursuit of the villain Ling Gao-Pei. My fiancee Wu Chin-Hua and our female friend Hung Sin-Laan are in it. I illustrate my writings. One shows lovely Chin-Hua and lovely Sin-Laan, both in bikinis, confronting Andre the Giant in a room filled with large mirrors, a la "Enter The Dragon".
WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH 