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Book Review: The Machine Stops by EM Forster

Drew Payne

Entry posted by Drew Payne in Book review

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It is the future and all humans live underground, each person having their own room, which they never leave. All their needs – food, drink, hygiene, medication and even sleep – are provided for them automatically from machinery within the room’s walls and ceiling. They communicate with other people without leaving their rooms, via a metal disk on which the other people’s faces are projected. They have a book that contains all required knowledge, which is being constantly updated. This world is all run, for these humans, by the mysterious Machine.

This disturbing dystopian novella was published in 1909 and was written by EM Forster, more famous for the novels A Room with a View and Howard’s End than his science fiction writing.

This is a strange but still fascinating read. It is written very much in the style of the Edwardian novel, as all of Forster’s fiction were, with a distanced narrative. The central character is a middle-aged woman, not a dashing male hero or strong-willed young heroine so common in later science fiction, and she doesn’t rebel against her world but embraces it, she almost worships the Machine. Neither does Forster explain how this world came into being; he just describes how it is. An early dystopian story that bucked the trends that would later be present in so much of later literature.

This was a fascinating read and so surprising coming from the pen of EM Forster. The only downside was that the title gives away far too much of the plot.

This was the only piece of science fiction that Forster wrote, but it is so startling and original that I wonder what else he would have written if he’d tried his hand at it again.

Find it here on Amazon

 

 

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Edited by Drew Payne
wrong title

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W_L

W_L 10,657

Posted

While not part of gay fiction unlike Maurice, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel as well. While Forster may not be HG Wells in terms of his futuristic outlooks, he was very prescient with his ideas concerning the mode of living that our society currently enjoys (especially in countries with internet/computer access, where grubhub and kindle is available with a click)

Have you ever read Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward from 1888, it was one of the most well-read books at the turn of the 19th century in the US with a futurist premise on a macro scale. It wasn't accurate by any means on all counts, but it did predict the rise of consumerism and digital currency, i.e. credit cards, very well.

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Drew Payne

Drew Payne 5,792

Posted

12 hours ago, W_L said:

While not part of gay fiction unlike Maurice, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel as well. While Forster may not be HG Wells in terms of his futuristic outlooks, he was very prescient with his ideas concerning the mode of living that our society currently enjoys (especially in countries with internet/computer access, where grubhub and kindle is available with a click)

Have you ever read Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward from 1888, it was one of the most well-read books at the turn of the 19th century in the US with a futurist premise on a macro scale. It wasn't accurate by any means on all counts, but it did predict the rise of consumerism and digital currency, i.e. credit cards, very well.

I liked this novella because it concentrated on the characters and not how this world worked and how it came to be, and they were certainly unusual character for this type of story.

I've not read Looking Backward but I'll certainly take a look at it. Thanks for the recommendation.

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W_L

W_L 10,657

Posted

7 hours ago, Drew Payne said:

I liked this novella because it concentrated on the characters and not how this world worked and how it came to be, and they were certainly unusual character for this type of story.

I've not read Looking Backward but I'll certainly take a look at it. Thanks for the recommendation.

It's one of those books that focuses on concepts and plots rather than character though, but they are quite imaginative and provocative concepts.

The 19th and early 20th Century were the early eras of Science Fiction, starting with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the idea of modernity and progress were applied to everything with the stories of the human impact of progress or progress impact on humanity.

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