The Machine Stops

"Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine?" Considered one of the best early examples of science fiction, Forster's short story, The Machine Stops, (1909), remains startlingly relevant-a warning whispered across a century about what happens when we forget how to be human. In a distant future where humanity has retreated underground, every need-physical, intellectual, emotional-is satisfied ...