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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
Eine wirklich schöne kleine Geschichte über die Trennung von Geist und Körper in einer zukünftigen möglichen Welt. Irgendwie Prognostisch schon recht gut, da wir ja erste Anzeichen davon heute schon haben z.B. das Studierte Paare weniger oft Kinder kriegen.
Das Cover ist übrigens sehr passend und fühlt sich schön an in dem Stoffeinband. Besser als jedes e-book. Schön warm an den Händen beim Lesen und nicht zu heißt weil der Akku läuft ^,-.
Der Text ist übrigens recht leicht lesbar. Vielleicht sogar etwas für Einsteiger. Ich konnte es mir sehr gut vorstellen. Es geht auch eher um das Gedankenkonzept als um die sehr reduzierte Umgebung.
Das Cover ist übrigens sehr passend und fühlt sich schön an in dem Stoffeinband. Besser als jedes e-book. Schön warm an den Händen beim Lesen und nicht zu heißt weil der Akku läuft ^,-.
Der Text ist übrigens recht leicht lesbar. Vielleicht sogar etwas für Einsteiger. Ich konnte es mir sehr gut vorstellen. Es geht auch eher um das Gedankenkonzept als um die sehr reduzierte Umgebung.
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I used to think I didn't like dystopian literature.
I like good dystopian literature as this story finally convinces me.
Amazingly prescient and thoughtful. "scraps of the untainted sky."
A new heaven and a new earth, indeed.
I like good dystopian literature as this story finally convinces me.
Amazingly prescient and thoughtful. "scraps of the untainted sky."
A new heaven and a new earth, indeed.
This is a short but brilliant collection of two short stories. The Machine Stops is SiFi at its best, and the Celestial Omnibus is brilliant. I've read Forster before but had no idea his range went this far.
Well worth a read!
Well worth a read!
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Short story written in 1909 about a future in which humans live alone in small pods where they communicate with each other via screen & sound, entertaining each other with lectures and new 'ideas' and discussion but rarely leaving their rooms in which all their needs are looked after by an omnipotent machine. People and places are more and more alike, with little interest in the vulgarity of actual contact or physicality. Its hauntingly prophetic, if too my idea of a really good weekend. I think it's interesting as to the ideas that Forster bundles up with this - an increasing emphasis on the value of analysis of analysis rather than fact itself, the mix of acquiescence and peevishness (compliant but petty). As much as about the control machines can exert over our lives, is the meaning and importance of the media - intellectual & far removed from any reality. Like "Brave New World" much appears comparatively benign to some of the stuff we're inventing. Worth reading but limited too.
should not resonate as strongly as it does over a century later but humanity has NOT learned its lesson i don't think.
this should be a more popular read in classrooms, especially for history topics, because the machine as an allegory for systems, the way people grow complacent around them to the point where they feel powerless and clueless to dismantle them but they stop working regardless... yeah
this should be a more popular read in classrooms, especially for history topics, because the machine as an allegory for systems, the way people grow complacent around them to the point where they feel powerless and clueless to dismantle them but they stop working regardless... yeah
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
After reading I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream a year or so ago, I gained quite a bit of appreciation for short stories. They are great! I get a tiny package that can contain quite a bit of good ideas and story-telling, while not requiring a lot of time to be read.
The Machine Stops, by E. M. Forster, was a fantastic short story that blew me away as much as the previously mentioned anthology.
It was published in 1909, and yet it contains one of the scariest, most accurate depictions of what a world dominated by reliance on technology could look like—and one might say, already looks like today.
The story is in the public domain, you can find a free copy of it in Alice & Books’ website, the story can also be found in The Eternal Moment, and other stories which is at Project Gutenberg, I hope Standard Ebooks does their own edition as well soon.
While Orwell’s 1984—published in 1949–deals with a corrupt form of government using surveillance, rewriting history and in a state of constant war; the world in The Machine Stops is honestly kind of perfect—at least on paper.
Humanity lives underground after the atmosphere is no longer inhabitable. There’s an hexagonal room assigned for one person, and everyone gets to live in one, everything can be reached at the press of a button: food, music, films, literature, a bed. There is instant video communication, video conferencing, online shopping.
Ideas, knowledge, cannot, and should not, be obtained from their original source. It is wrong after all, since feelings and experiences only undermine reality and facts.
Physical contact is frowned upon, you don’t visit people in person. Water is hot, the lights are comfortable. You can request to become a parent, you can request euthanasia, but birth and death rates have to stay balanced. No matter, there is no pain anymore, the Machine knows best.
Travelling is mostly unnecessary, but flying machines exist, although everyone closes their windows, nobody wants the Sun shining over them, nobody wants to look down to the old cities and landscapes found in the surface, there are no ideas to be gained there.
I don’t usually talk so much about what a book contains, but this is just the idea and the setting, there is also a story to be told, despite it all being so short, there’s still a lot more. It is an easy read to fly through in a single sitting. I highly recommend it.