jammytots 's review for:

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

3.5

fast-paced

---

the first time i read the machine stops i absolutely loved it, but on a reread i found myself a little bored, and close to DNFing, which is a little shocking for a novelette under 50 pages. while it's incredibly impressive and inventive and eerily similar to our present day, it was also dull and lacked the extra political oomph i like from my dystopias. it has and will continue to stick with me, but i will always prefer something more fleshed out and with slightly deeper commentary than 'technology bad' - which is gonna be tricky to achieve with a book written in the 1900s. on the other hand, i enjoyed the celestial omnibus more on a reread (i think it went over my head the first time!) but it definitely still struggles from the quite obvious and somewhat shallow moral commentary. but hey, that's my fault for wanting more depth from two tiny short stories written a hundred years ago