The Machine Stops
ByE. M. Forster
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Readers` Reviews
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
celia christensen
E.M.Forster wrote this ‘Science Fiction story’ in 1909. Pre computer, pre- world wide web, pre-smart talking to itself technology.
Just over 100 years later this seems not like science fiction at all, more, something which might be a mere handful of years away, and in many ways, already here.
Set sometime in the future (at the time of writing) human beings have gratefully done away with all the challenging, messy stuff of having to communicate with each other, and skilfully negotiate co-operation with another face to face human being, in real time and place.
Instead, each lives softly cocooned like a babe inside a personal pod, where all wants are regulated by sentient technology. The technology ‘The Machine’ was once created and conceived of by humans, but now it does things so much more efficiently than any one human can do. All needs, be they of ambient temperature, health and well being, education, entertainment, furniture, are seamlessly provided by the machine, and the human being in its pod never has to rub up against the messy flesh of another. Communication happens by seeing (and hearing) each other on some kind of screen. You in your small pod, me in mine
Everything that can be controlled, is, and everything that can’t, in the material world, is regarded as unpleasant and dangerous.
Living happens in the personal pod, deep below the earth, where the air supply is regulated, and purified. The surface of the earth is deemed dangerous, the air not fit to breathe. The Machine has told us so, so it must be true.
Vashti, the central character is happy in her pod. Her son is a difficult and challenging embarrassment to her and their ‘meetings’ on screen do not go well. He also has disturbing things to say about The Machine, and appears to harbour dangerously subversive ideas about a better, earlier time, when people communicated directly with each other. And then………well, the title of the story shows where this will lead.
Twenty-first century readers can’t help but look around at a world where we are all clutching our little screens,facetwitting, Instachatting, occupying the same space as each other in cafes, on buses, colliding on the street, but rarely connecting with each other, in real. Terminals in shops instruct us that we have placed an unrecognised item in the bagging area. Doctor’s surgeries require us to register our arrival on a screen, whilst the receptionist communicates only with her own terminal. And children, so we are told, no longer realise that potatoes grow in the earth, milk comes from cows, and, from early years are plonked in front of screens with brightly coloured moving shapes, emoticons and squawking sounds, so their harassed parents can get on with the important stuff of staring at their own little screens, busy with brightly coloured moving shapes, emoticons and squawks of their own
Whilst I certainly prefer Forster’s more ‘traditional’, literary novels of relationship this is a horribly possible vision, and it is tempting to categorise it as contemporary fiction, not Sci-Fi at all
A short piece, it punches the gut and leaves the reader gasping for breath
Just over 100 years later this seems not like science fiction at all, more, something which might be a mere handful of years away, and in many ways, already here.
Set sometime in the future (at the time of writing) human beings have gratefully done away with all the challenging, messy stuff of having to communicate with each other, and skilfully negotiate co-operation with another face to face human being, in real time and place.
Instead, each lives softly cocooned like a babe inside a personal pod, where all wants are regulated by sentient technology. The technology ‘The Machine’ was once created and conceived of by humans, but now it does things so much more efficiently than any one human can do. All needs, be they of ambient temperature, health and well being, education, entertainment, furniture, are seamlessly provided by the machine, and the human being in its pod never has to rub up against the messy flesh of another. Communication happens by seeing (and hearing) each other on some kind of screen. You in your small pod, me in mine
Everything that can be controlled, is, and everything that can’t, in the material world, is regarded as unpleasant and dangerous.
Living happens in the personal pod, deep below the earth, where the air supply is regulated, and purified. The surface of the earth is deemed dangerous, the air not fit to breathe. The Machine has told us so, so it must be true.
Vashti, the central character is happy in her pod. Her son is a difficult and challenging embarrassment to her and their ‘meetings’ on screen do not go well. He also has disturbing things to say about The Machine, and appears to harbour dangerously subversive ideas about a better, earlier time, when people communicated directly with each other. And then………well, the title of the story shows where this will lead.
Twenty-first century readers can’t help but look around at a world where we are all clutching our little screens,facetwitting, Instachatting, occupying the same space as each other in cafes, on buses, colliding on the street, but rarely connecting with each other, in real. Terminals in shops instruct us that we have placed an unrecognised item in the bagging area. Doctor’s surgeries require us to register our arrival on a screen, whilst the receptionist communicates only with her own terminal. And children, so we are told, no longer realise that potatoes grow in the earth, milk comes from cows, and, from early years are plonked in front of screens with brightly coloured moving shapes, emoticons and squawking sounds, so their harassed parents can get on with the important stuff of staring at their own little screens, busy with brightly coloured moving shapes, emoticons and squawks of their own
Whilst I certainly prefer Forster’s more ‘traditional’, literary novels of relationship this is a horribly possible vision, and it is tempting to categorise it as contemporary fiction, not Sci-Fi at all
A short piece, it punches the gut and leaves the reader gasping for breath
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
kim brown
"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 inking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine"
This short story is definitely a must-read. Way ahead of his time, Forster - in the 1930s - foresaw much of today's technology and how the continued "progress" ultimately destroys humanity and mankind.
It is a classic piece of utopian/dystopian literature, something that we should all be exposed to.
One Should Also Read: Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Giver (and companions), The Hunger Games,& Divergent.
This short story is definitely a must-read. Way ahead of his time, Forster - in the 1930s - foresaw much of today's technology and how the continued "progress" ultimately destroys humanity and mankind.
It is a classic piece of utopian/dystopian literature, something that we should all be exposed to.
One Should Also Read: Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Giver (and companions), The Hunger Games,& Divergent.
E. M. Forster - The Machine Stops :: Stop the Coming Civil War: My Savage Truth :: The Optician’s Wife :: Friend Request :: Go Set a Watchman: A Novel
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
joey rizzolo
Before computers, when I would answer my ringing phone, it wasn't unusual for the response to be, `Oh, you're there. I was hoping to get your machine.' Email relieved the awkwardness of accidentally being forced to confront another human being. It wasn't perfect but it was good-enough.
Imagine a scale that runs from unacceptable to perfect. Along this scale is poor, fair, mediocre, passable, good-enough, good, better, perfect. Sears used to use a scale in its catalogue of good, better, best. They never would have considered calling them good-enough, better and best. But good-enough is the standard now. Think of the Wikis. The best that can be said about them, on their best day, is good-enough. CGI movies, good-enough, or is it that we are amazed that these things can be done at all that permits them to be considered acceptable? Is Toy Story better animation than Roadrunner? Are these things that are good-enough really good enough for you? Don't you want more?
This is the crux of the idea behind The Machine Stops by E.M Forster. In it, The Book Of The Machine is the stand-in for Wikis and other know-it-all sources. If you have a question, in this future dystopia, you turn to this Book for the answer. No matter that The Book is often wrong and always misleading, it is the source of knowledge and the guide for its people. This idea was lifted to comic heights in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, another Book with all the answers that could not be relied on to be correct or even helpful. Are humans destined to need some kind of Book to guide their lives? Like these examples, the internet and the information explosion presents itself as an entity that appears to be expanding while it is actually shrinking. It contracts and encompasses the life around it.
First impressions no longer exist. Each thought is a derivative of a learned thought, each behavior an imitation. In Forster each person lives in a controlled room. Their senses are manipulated, through the environment, to provide the Machine's misguided definition of perfection. He uses the sense of smell as an example. People in his world are appalled and uncomfortable, it all smells so different. They prefer the stimuli in their own room, not the smell, taste or touch of the outside world or others of their own kind. Look around you. Are things so different now? How many television commercials concerned with alerting you to the intolerable aromas around you do you see each week? How far removed from actual experience do the commercials say you have to be in order to be happy?
Read On.
Imagine a scale that runs from unacceptable to perfect. Along this scale is poor, fair, mediocre, passable, good-enough, good, better, perfect. Sears used to use a scale in its catalogue of good, better, best. They never would have considered calling them good-enough, better and best. But good-enough is the standard now. Think of the Wikis. The best that can be said about them, on their best day, is good-enough. CGI movies, good-enough, or is it that we are amazed that these things can be done at all that permits them to be considered acceptable? Is Toy Story better animation than Roadrunner? Are these things that are good-enough really good enough for you? Don't you want more?
This is the crux of the idea behind The Machine Stops by E.M Forster. In it, The Book Of The Machine is the stand-in for Wikis and other know-it-all sources. If you have a question, in this future dystopia, you turn to this Book for the answer. No matter that The Book is often wrong and always misleading, it is the source of knowledge and the guide for its people. This idea was lifted to comic heights in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, another Book with all the answers that could not be relied on to be correct or even helpful. Are humans destined to need some kind of Book to guide their lives? Like these examples, the internet and the information explosion presents itself as an entity that appears to be expanding while it is actually shrinking. It contracts and encompasses the life around it.
First impressions no longer exist. Each thought is a derivative of a learned thought, each behavior an imitation. In Forster each person lives in a controlled room. Their senses are manipulated, through the environment, to provide the Machine's misguided definition of perfection. He uses the sense of smell as an example. People in his world are appalled and uncomfortable, it all smells so different. They prefer the stimuli in their own room, not the smell, taste or touch of the outside world or others of their own kind. Look around you. Are things so different now? How many television commercials concerned with alerting you to the intolerable aromas around you do you see each week? How far removed from actual experience do the commercials say you have to be in order to be happy?
Read On.
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
joel nunez
The Machine Stops
A saddening and melancholic tale of a all-too-possible dystopian future, of a world where all life is lived underground, below the surface of the Earth; where human contact is mostly confined to forms of video and audio communication; and where parents' role in child-rearing ends at the moment of birth. Children are raised in "public nurseries" and later assigned living quarters, anywhere in the globe (as long as it's underground). The protagonist, Vashti-whom I hesitate to call "protagonist" because she is a woman far more acted-upon than acting or self-reliant-lives in one room, closed off, with many acquaintances and friends with whom she only communicates by the aforesaid audio and visual modes. She gives lectures-but she doesn't travel-she sees no one. When her son who lives beneath the Northern Hemisphere asks her to travel to visit him, she-living under the Southern Hemisphere-is distraught.
This is a future where the Machine rules all-everything is taken for granted: climate, comfort, literature, sleep, medicine-as the Machine is in charge of it all. I am reminded of psychological studies of rats and monkeys in isolation, for even though there is communication here, it is at several removes; and as Vashti demonstrates, even the idea of leaving her room (womb), of travelling, of speaking and being spoken to, seems monstrous.
A saddening and melancholic tale of a all-too-possible dystopian future, of a world where all life is lived underground, below the surface of the Earth; where human contact is mostly confined to forms of video and audio communication; and where parents' role in child-rearing ends at the moment of birth. Children are raised in "public nurseries" and later assigned living quarters, anywhere in the globe (as long as it's underground). The protagonist, Vashti-whom I hesitate to call "protagonist" because she is a woman far more acted-upon than acting or self-reliant-lives in one room, closed off, with many acquaintances and friends with whom she only communicates by the aforesaid audio and visual modes. She gives lectures-but she doesn't travel-she sees no one. When her son who lives beneath the Northern Hemisphere asks her to travel to visit him, she-living under the Southern Hemisphere-is distraught.
This is a future where the Machine rules all-everything is taken for granted: climate, comfort, literature, sleep, medicine-as the Machine is in charge of it all. I am reminded of psychological studies of rats and monkeys in isolation, for even though there is communication here, it is at several removes; and as Vashti demonstrates, even the idea of leaving her room (womb), of travelling, of speaking and being spoken to, seems monstrous.
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
liz reilly
Society has fallen into an isolated, purposeless dependency on a omnicompetent machine. Dependent for generations mankind has lost all self reliance, physically and mentally. Several current technologies are foretold in this over 100 year old short story. The English language is masterfully employed here in a manner rarely found today. Highly recommended.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
chuck ryals
We all know the pervasive stereotype of the digital age: overweight, pasty-faced, living in a darkened basement in front of a constantly flickering screen. And here it is again ...
Except that this short, incisive tale was written & published before World War One, at the very beginning of the 20th Century. From that vantage point, it gazed upon the dawning of the modern age with a clear, clinical eye & foresaw the potentially tragic results. With millions upon millions of people eagerly wired & living as much of their lives as possible online today, how far away are we from the digital hives E. M. Forster depicted with such stunning clarity a century ago? And even more pointedly, how will such people manage if their digital cocoon is abruptly disrupted or even destroyed altogether?
Countless science-fiction writers have since warned us about the dangers of letting our lives be lived by & for our technology. But this remains one of the most potent & urgent iterations of that warning, made all the more powerful for having been written so long ago. How swiftly the digital paradise becomes a crumbling, chaotic hell once the power fails! Yet we still assume in our naiveté & arrogance that we're invincible, that there'll always be enough power for all our technological toys. Forster makes us stop & wonder: How long until we find ourselves in the dark, with the world we knew crashing down upon us?
Highly recommended!
Except that this short, incisive tale was written & published before World War One, at the very beginning of the 20th Century. From that vantage point, it gazed upon the dawning of the modern age with a clear, clinical eye & foresaw the potentially tragic results. With millions upon millions of people eagerly wired & living as much of their lives as possible online today, how far away are we from the digital hives E. M. Forster depicted with such stunning clarity a century ago? And even more pointedly, how will such people manage if their digital cocoon is abruptly disrupted or even destroyed altogether?
Countless science-fiction writers have since warned us about the dangers of letting our lives be lived by & for our technology. But this remains one of the most potent & urgent iterations of that warning, made all the more powerful for having been written so long ago. How swiftly the digital paradise becomes a crumbling, chaotic hell once the power fails! Yet we still assume in our naiveté & arrogance that we're invincible, that there'll always be enough power for all our technological toys. Forster makes us stop & wonder: How long until we find ourselves in the dark, with the world we knew crashing down upon us?
Highly recommended!
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
laura ann
One of the great visionary works of Edwardian ("Wellsian") era science fiction, "The Machine Stops" is a propulsive novella describing the end result of mechanized, dehumanized mankind, and its potential rebirth. I've lately read quite a few short stories by Forster's and Wells' contemporaries, and rarely do they come remotely close to the power and conciseness of the vision offered here. Vashti, a mother in a far-remote future cannot abide her distant son Kuno's attempts to find his way into the world of the outside, the world that her civilization had long ago given up in favor of total artificiality....but she would do well to heed his heretical words, as the decrepit and enfeebled society begins to crumble when the machines - which the people no longer have the knowledge or ability to reproduce or repair - begin to break down.
Hugely influential on SF writers, this really deserves to be better known among general audiences. It's rather astonishing to think that this dystopian vision was published in 1909 - over 20 years before Huxley's "Brave New World" and 40 before Orwell's "1984". Wells himself rarely produced anything of this intensity in the genre, though he certainly had an admitted influence on this work (in particular I think with his 1899 novel "When the Sleeper Wakes"). Forster's attitude about progress seems altogether more pessimistic than Wells' early "scientific romances", though interestingly enough at the end of his life Wells himself retreated towards just this sort of dreary outlook in the wake of World War II and the atomic bomb.
As others have stated, this Dodo Press edition might not be the best way to attain this classic work - but by all means, if you are a serious student of science fiction or prophetic, social-themed literature, read it. And if you're a fan of the author, read it for an example of something altogether in a different veing than "Howards End".
Hugely influential on SF writers, this really deserves to be better known among general audiences. It's rather astonishing to think that this dystopian vision was published in 1909 - over 20 years before Huxley's "Brave New World" and 40 before Orwell's "1984". Wells himself rarely produced anything of this intensity in the genre, though he certainly had an admitted influence on this work (in particular I think with his 1899 novel "When the Sleeper Wakes"). Forster's attitude about progress seems altogether more pessimistic than Wells' early "scientific romances", though interestingly enough at the end of his life Wells himself retreated towards just this sort of dreary outlook in the wake of World War II and the atomic bomb.
As others have stated, this Dodo Press edition might not be the best way to attain this classic work - but by all means, if you are a serious student of science fiction or prophetic, social-themed literature, read it. And if you're a fan of the author, read it for an example of something altogether in a different veing than "Howards End".
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
kristy bellerby
Genre: science fiction
Well-written, but somewhat unbelievable. The plot and setting are similar to those of The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke and The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. The idea that people would want to live their lives entirely indoors suggests of agoraphobia.
Well-written, but somewhat unbelievable. The plot and setting are similar to those of The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke and The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. The idea that people would want to live their lives entirely indoors suggests of agoraphobia.
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
carley
I read The Machine Stops last week after seeing it mentioned in an article in New Scientist. It seems to be more relevant today than at any time since it was published.
A couple of years ago I bought two versions of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine that were illustrated and retold. HereThe Time Machine (Troll Illustrated Classics) and hereThe Time Machine (Great Illustrated Classics). I think The Machine Stops would benefit from similar treatment.
By the way, the Machine Stops is beyond its copyright and you can find it for free on the internet by googling some of its text in quotes. You can make your own text document and put it on your kindle. That's what I did. I imagine in another year some kindly volunteer will make a free kindle book for The Machine Stops and you will see it offered on the store, just as there are free kindle books offered here for most of Wells works soon after they turn 72 years old.
A couple of years ago I bought two versions of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine that were illustrated and retold. HereThe Time Machine (Troll Illustrated Classics) and hereThe Time Machine (Great Illustrated Classics). I think The Machine Stops would benefit from similar treatment.
By the way, the Machine Stops is beyond its copyright and you can find it for free on the internet by googling some of its text in quotes. You can make your own text document and put it on your kindle. That's what I did. I imagine in another year some kindly volunteer will make a free kindle book for The Machine Stops and you will see it offered on the store, just as there are free kindle books offered here for most of Wells works soon after they turn 72 years old.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
teri harman
This brief but timeless story illustrates one very plausible answer to the question: where would we be without our natural scientists, our engineers and our knowledgeable technicians to maintain and improve the physical machinery that our lives depend on?
As we contemplate the view from Hubbert's Peak (see the recent and readable books on the likely future of easy-to-use fossil fuels written by petroleum geologist Kenneth Deffeyes), understanding the possible answers to this question may become even more important to us as a civilization than they have so far.
So: the next time you meet a plumber, electrician, power plant operator, waterworks technician, chemical engineer, field geologist or research biologist, please be sure to tip your hat and say thank you. These are the folks whose hard work, understanding and fertile imaginations make life bearable for all of us. They are the people who have (so far) ensured that the machine doesn't stop. Without their dedication to their work, we might all be back to chipping spearheads from flint and fishhooks from antler & bone.
As we contemplate the view from Hubbert's Peak (see the recent and readable books on the likely future of easy-to-use fossil fuels written by petroleum geologist Kenneth Deffeyes), understanding the possible answers to this question may become even more important to us as a civilization than they have so far.
So: the next time you meet a plumber, electrician, power plant operator, waterworks technician, chemical engineer, field geologist or research biologist, please be sure to tip your hat and say thank you. These are the folks whose hard work, understanding and fertile imaginations make life bearable for all of us. They are the people who have (so far) ensured that the machine doesn't stop. Without their dedication to their work, we might all be back to chipping spearheads from flint and fishhooks from antler & bone.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
ghaith
"The Machine Stops" which I read as an adolescent, really stayed with me as an early statement at how machines could ultimately de-humanize people. In the Forster story, humans live isolated from each other in cells with all their needs met by an omnipotent Machine which they treat as godlike and shun all those who don't.
I took that idea and expanded it into a trilogy (The Telefax Box; Book I, Aurora Rising; Book II and Telefax Acclaimed; Book III). The first book depicts a civilization that is completely dependent on machines and includes the creation of a fully functional machine, produced in a laboratory, which gets loose and mates with a human to produce a half-machine. In Book II, we see a civilization existing without machinery that seeks only to be left alone, but when circumstances in Book III pit them against one another, the result is a destructive conflict as the machine civilization seeks to take over.
Read all three. The future is more dangerous than we already think.
The Telefax Box
Aurora Rising
Telefax Acclaimed
I took that idea and expanded it into a trilogy (The Telefax Box; Book I, Aurora Rising; Book II and Telefax Acclaimed; Book III). The first book depicts a civilization that is completely dependent on machines and includes the creation of a fully functional machine, produced in a laboratory, which gets loose and mates with a human to produce a half-machine. In Book II, we see a civilization existing without machinery that seeks only to be left alone, but when circumstances in Book III pit them against one another, the result is a destructive conflict as the machine civilization seeks to take over.
Read all three. The future is more dangerous than we already think.
The Telefax Box
Aurora Rising
Telefax Acclaimed
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
jennifer evans
It's amazing to think that this story was written nearly a century ago, when most of the machinery that currently runs our lives hadn't even been invented yet. My son's heading off to college to major in electrical engineering. He'll be working on the Machine, and I'll be sending this story along with him to keep him grounded
(sorry about the pun).
(sorry about the pun).
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
patrick mccabe
It's amazing to think that this story was written nearly a century ago, when most of the machinery that currently runs our lives hadn't even been invented yet. My son's heading off to college to major in electrical engineering. He'll be working on the Machine, and I'll be sending this story along with him to keep him grounded
(sorry about the pun).
(sorry about the pun).
Please RateThe Machine Stops
Sound like Hell? Not necessarily, because those that live in these “rooms,” and I put it in quotation marks, are content to stay there all their lives, and have no desire to leave. In the story, this system was invented by man, but the machine the runs this world-wide utopia/dystopia develops a life of its own, where the humans become the cells to this single world lifeform.
The occupant in this story is a woman named Vashti, and she is happy and content to live her life in this one room designed to fit all her wants and needs. The plot comes in where her son contacts her from the other side of the world, and insists that she visit him in person. Resentful, she comes, sees the sights from the airplane like the ocean, the Himalayan Mountains, the Greek Islands, and is not impressed. Visiting her son, she is afraid to travel, even to venture outside of her cubicle, like most people.
Her son rebells, and warns her that the machine will stop. After going home, it does. All Vashti’s luxuries are ineffective, as are everyone else’s and people all over start to panic. As they flee to the surface, chaos ensues. I’ll leave it at that.
This is not the entire story, of course, and this is not a prophecy nor a prediction. It’s a science fiction story that the author, E. M. Forster wrote back in 1928. I read this in “Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2B.”
No, that will not be our future, and we will not leave isolated in underground, beehive life cubicles. But this is a satire of modern life Forster was able to foresee back in his day, and very much applies to the human race today.
Observe our technology. Every well-to-do home in the Western World (and Asia, also) has a TV and a computer, and everyone has a smart phone. We spend our spare time watching TV, being on our computer, talking on our cell phones, and even when you go outside, you see a lot of young people occupied with their smart phones, looking up one thing or another, crossing the street, in a restaurant, never looking up to see what is around them. We are also advancing on to driverless cars, and with access to the internet, having everything, from groceries to merchandise delivered to us immediately.
This story, although an exaggeration, points out what would happen if the TV went out, the wifi went on the blink, and people were unable to access their electronics. How would they react?
Many times, they would get angry, call the cable/internet provider and bitterly complain. We have become addicted to our electronics.
We take many things for granted in this modern world, and we will take much more for granted as we progress, while ignoring the world around us.
This, I believe is the main theme of the story. Have your technology, but live in the world around you. Socialize with others, talk to people, meet new people, go to different places for the sake of seeing people and places different than your own. We are still doing all this, but the question is, as we progress in our technology, will we become living, self contained cubicles and ignore the world around us?