Secure The Machine Stops [Penguin Twentieth Century Classics] Translated By E.M. Forster Displayed In Manuscript

Machine Stops is a short science fiction story, It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth.
Each individual lives in isolation in a 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.
Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of firsthand experience, People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own.
Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and are threatened with "Homelessness".
Eventually, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, and the civilization of the Machine comes to an end,  Wikipedia
An amazingly accurate prediction of todays alienation from life and its artificiality through technology and the internet.


In E. M. Forsters future society people withdraw from real life, spending their days and nights in a single subterranean room which looks more like a cell or a honeycomb surrounded by buttons to press and levers to pull and also some kind of communication apparatus to contact other people.
Leaving ones room is possible and not forbidden, but hardly anyone does it, Travelling in trains under ground or in “AirShips” high above the clouds and mountains are the only way you can go from place to place.
The surface of the Earth has become uninhabitable,

Physical needs are provided for by THE MACHINE which also runs the gadgets in the rooms and controls communication channels.
People are spending their waking time passing on “ideas” in the form of short lectures to other people or are in turn being lectured by them.
Firsthand ideas from direct observations are being frowned upon where should those come from anyway, but secondhand ideas or better yet tenthhand are fine.


One day a woman, who developed an almost religious adoration for THE MACHINE, receives a call from one of her sons on the other side of the world.
He requests the unthinkable from his mother: “Come, and visit me, ”

The author apparently deliberately kept the description of the actual technology of THE MACHINE somewhat vague.
A smart move, because his novella remains worth reading even after more than a hundred years have passed since publication.
If I would accurately describe the state

of the Internet today in a story, people would probably laugh me down in ayears, orororyears.
Who can know for sure Exponential progress can be such a cruel thing, You have to be careful to not get under the wheels and be considered a misfit, Better keep your Facebook entries uptodate and your messenger on your phone online all the time and ready to beep you off your thoughts.
And always always! keep an eye on newer developments that might improve your life even a bit more.
This way you also have fodder for conversation with virtual “friends”,

I realize that writing a review of a book that pretty much condemns the so called “social” media on a social media platform is somewhat absurd.
I should rather go outside, meet a stranger in a pub, give them the book and say “Here, read this and get your life back.
Its the only one you have and there wont be WhatsApp in the afterlife, ” But, alas, I bought the electronic version of the book which is not transferable from a machine called Amazon and the pub has been replaced with an internet café.


Update, Mar

Forget what I said about going out and meeting new people.
There's a whole new ballgame, It's called FlattenTheCurve and it simply involves spending your time in front of a machine lecturing people about staying home.



sitelink
This work is licensed under a sitelinkCreative Commons AttributionNonCommercialShareAlike,Unported License. The Machine Stops is a novella written by E, M. Forster A Room with a View, Passage to India about a society where people live underground, siloed in individual spaces, relying on an omnipresent Machine to communicate via messages and videos with one another.
People worship the Machine, shun physical human interaction, and exchange second, third, and even tenthhand ideas, In fact, the further an idea is away from an original thought, the better,

Sounds pretty mundane and unoriginal, except HE WROTE IT IN,!!!!

In fact, his predictions of the internet, Zoom, andst century groupthink were eerily prescient, particularly nailing what it was like for humans to live throughs COVID lockdowns.


Its not surprising then that Audible opted to produce an original recording in September, with honeyvoiced Carey Mulligan handling the narration.
After Mulligans performance on The Midnight Library audiobook, I thought the old cliched line, 'Id listen to her read the phone book.
That lead me to this underpromoted classic lurking in the Audible Plus catalog,

Those without Audible memberships will have no issues accessing the story elsewhere though, While my mind did drift ever so occasionally, Id still recommend the,hours or,words it takes to get through it,

You can even read it online here: sitelink net/bookrea

Blog: sitelink confettibookshelf. com/ Rating:.of five

UPDATE I think a lot of earreaders will enjoy sitelinkthis audio drama of The Machine Stops.


COVIDUPDATE I reread this tale in light of the frustrations of quarantine, I have to say that, while I can't oooch a scoche higher than threeandahalf, I can round up instead of down because the experience of reading it is much more surprising.


The Publisher Says: The Machine Stops is a science fiction short story,words by E.
M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge November, the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in.
After being voted one of the best novellas up to, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories.
Init was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, The book is particularly notable for predicting new technologies such as instant messaging and the internet,

My : As amazing as reading about the Internet, streaming video, and instant messaging must have been in, it's more amazing into think that,years ago, the ubiquity of such central facets of out lives was placed in a far distant future.


I mean really, what'syears in the sweep of history It's even less impressive measured in geologic time.
Electric lighting was still in its infancy then, though, and the automobile was a plaything for the very rich.
Much like computers inand the Internet in,

Well then. Sobering perspective on the speed of change in the modern world, eh what

What mars this read for me is the vast amount of SFnal reading I've done in my life.
Unlike the readers of, I've imbibed the waters of the Styx and forgotten more than they ever knew about things predictive.
And the trope of "civilization is making meatsacks of us all, woe woe" has moved from startling insight and clarion warning to the dreary moaning of the Longface Puritans League that says not to eat anything that has any taste, do anything that is remotely fun, and NEVER EVER EVER have sex.
Be miserable, it builds character, as Calvin's father would say!

Live longer, as Doctor Oz would say!

What ever for

Anyway, sitelinkthe story's free here and it'll take about a halfhour to read.
I come down on the side of that being a worthwhile investment, Barely. .