Hi everyone! This week's story appeared on my radar after I recently watched two great movies: A Passage to India and Howards End. I didn't realize that both were based on books by the author E. M. Forster until I finished the second one. Then, after scanning my "to-read" list of stories I was pleasantly surprised to find that he also wrote a famous science fiction novelette in 1909 - "The Machine Stops". Well, I just couldn't pass it up, and it turns out that it is a pretty great story too!

Non-Spoiler Summary

Vashti is a woman who, like everybody else on Earth, lives in a small, underground room where "The Machine" takes care of her every need, including: food, medicine, sleep and social interactions. She likes it that way, because things are perfect and predictable, and she doesn't have to physically interact with other people. But her perfect little world gets thrown off when she gets a call from her son, Kuno, who lives half a planet away. He wants her to come visit him, physically, so he can tell her something important. It takes a while, and when she is finally convinced she makes the repulsive journey via airship with several other people. But her discomfort with the trip is nothing compared to how she feels once Kuno shares his secret with her! And what a secret it is - eventually causing huge changes in society!

My Two Cents

• Story: - This was a very cool idea for a story! Although I have seen similar plots in other stories (notably Asimov's R. Daneel Olivaw books^†) this one had its own unique kind of creepy feel to it.
• Writing:  - Forster is a good writer - as evidenced by his abundance of famous novels. The writing in this story is no exception - it is very nice and flows well to boot!
• Fun Factor:  - There were several fun things in this story, but I especially liked The Machine and the cinematophotes - prescient inventions eerily similar to real life movie projectors and the world wide web!

Where To Find The Machine Stops

• This novelette first appeared in The Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909.
• You can read "The Machine Stops" for free online at The Internet Archive.
• It is also included as one of the stories in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two B.^†

Craving More Stories Like This One?

If you liked "The Machine Stops" then you might also enjoy Murray Leinster's 1946 story "A Logic Named Joe" - about a network connected machine that can answer any and all questions.

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(This is a revised version of a post which was originally published on BestScienceFictionStories.com on Jan 5th, 2019.)