A review by emma_victorian
The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

4.0

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.