I need to talk about Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream collection of short stories

I'm currently reading a collection of Harlan Ellison's short stories that include: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Big Sam Was My Friend, Eyes of Dust, World of the Myth, Lonelyache, Delusions For a Dragon Slayer, and Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes. I've finished all but Pretty Maggie, which I'm almost done with but I need someone to talk to about them. Each of the narrators of the stories are awful in ways that make it clear that the author is aware that they're terrible, but uncertain if there's much distinction between the POVs of the characters vs that of the author. For the eponymous story, I feel like so much of modern sci fi owe the apparently quite litigious Ellison several royalty checks (in particular the Matrix and Black Mirror). It honestly kind of peaked at the title but that's more because the title was so evocative that it would have been nearly impossible to live up to it. That being said, the story itself certainly came close.

Big Sam Was My Friend honestly was my favorite. Of course there's the still relevant societal critique on both traditional fundamentalists and inactive bystanders but honestly just the premise of a man who's traveling through space trying to find Heaven to get to a lost loved one is a concept I'm kind of obsessed with.

For both Eyes of Dust and World of the Myth I kind of wish he had taken his time a bit more. A story where an image obsessed society rots with its own evil after destroying someone they felt was their lesser is kind of amazing but the actual prose were a bit obvious and the story was really rushed. I needed more time to connect to the characters. Meanwhile a story that ends with the implication that an unlikeable dork, a deplorable rapist, and a woman who has the nerve to lead a man on would all immediately kill themselves in despair if they had to face who they really were really needs more time to get me on board with the characters being complex rather than taking for granted the super dated idea that women are just asking for it.

Lonelyache and Delusions for a Dragon Slayer are the ones that have me questioning where the character ends and the author begins. Lonelyache was so weird and creepy and while I wasn't as taken by the "trippy visuals" so many talk up for Delusions (there have been 60 years of trippy visuals depicted since its initial release) its subversion of a swashbuckling fantasy is doing leaps and bounds better than a lot of attempts at genre subversions released today. However I have to rate this story a 0/10 and hold Ellison's estate personally liable for the harm inflicted on me with the words "labial moisture."

So, thoughts? Feelings? Vibes? These stories are weird and trippy and depressing and each one that I finish leaves me with a feeling of "…what?"

Edit: I realized I forgot to mention my thoughts on World of the Myth.