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

5.0

What a fabulous story! It's all in the telling - the descriptive writing is wonderful. Basically, man has created a machine to fulfil all his wants, and has now handed over control of life to the machine. People sit in their individual rooms, never physically meeting other humans. All their needs are catered for at the touch of a button, and they communicate constantly with their thousands of friends through the machine in short bursts, increasingly irritated by the interruptions of people contacting them, but still responding to those interruptions. Sounds horrifyingly familiar, huh?

But one man dreams of a time when mankind walked freely on the surface of the earth and gazed at the heavens. He sees that the machine is no longer the servant of the people and has become instead their master. And he foresees that one day the machine may stop...

A warning from the past to us in the present of where we may easily end up in the not too distant future. Full of some disturbing images, a little bit of horror and a tiny bit of hope - a masterpiece of short story writing. Turn off your computer, sign out of Facebook, stop watching cat videos on youtube, yes, even switch off your smartphone for an hour if you still can... and read a story that will make you just a little reluctant to switch them all back on. Then go out and look at the stars...

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