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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
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.
“But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.”
Although published in 1909, the warning strikes even more now in 2024. Brilliant and chilling sci-fi short story.
Although published in 1909, the warning strikes even more now in 2024. Brilliant and chilling sci-fi short story.
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Confinement, Death, Blood, Religious bigotry, Abandonment
BBC play version. The precursor to a plot such as Matrix or Terminator.
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A short story from 1909 that is extremely relevant to today's reader. I wonder how Forster would have viewed our dependency on technology today.
This book was amazing. As I was reading it I was astonished how predictive it was. We rely heavily on technology in our everyday lives only here it’s gone further to the point where humans are totally dependent on technology for everything.
In our world where advances in technology are ever advancing and we are becoming more and more dependent on it it’s worth stepping back and looking around at nature and the world and appreciating what we have while we still have it.
In our world where advances in technology are ever advancing and we are becoming more and more dependent on it it’s worth stepping back and looking around at nature and the world and appreciating what we have while we still have it.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes