The Machine Stops (version 3)
E. M. Forster
Read by Elizabeth Klett
"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. ( Summary by Wikipedia ) (1 hr 20 min)
Chapters
| 1 - The Air-Ship | 30:53 | Read by Elizabeth Klett |
| 2 - The Mending Apparatus | 26:01 | Read by Elizabeth Klett |
| 3 - The Homeless | 23:44 | Read by Elizabeth Klett |
Reviews
Thought provoking
ListeninginChicago
Excellent story. Technology has developed considerably from when this was written, but the story still makes one think about the present and the future. Will technology close us off more and more from direct experience and personal contact? Technology is a powerful tool, but of course, it is for us to determine whether it is applied to good purpose. Elizabeth Klett did an excellent job of reading this solo project for Librivox.
Excellent
Lynn Witherington
I really loved this piece all the way through it tho usually speculative fiction gets boring to me and doesn’t age well. But to hear his description of the Earth as all brown and sterile, the air as unbreathable to humans and all the little touches that had contributed comfort to our race, making them willing to give it up for an artificial life gave The Machine Stops authority and I learned something on every page. Even funny little moments like “after giving an unsuccessful lecture Vashti had wanted to call on Euthanasia for herself.” Elizabeth Klett was perfect for this as she is for most things and I’m very grateful she undertook it for us.
Beautifully written.
dsuden
I was worried that the author wouldn’t be able to do justice to a story of this sweeping nature in such a short account, but it really does work the way he has written it. Very thought-provoking, and beautifully written. Elizabeth, as usual, does a fantastic job. She is so versatile in her voice characterizations. I would have loved for this to be a longer storyJust so I could have seen this expanded out, but even as it is, it’s a superb work of science fiction.
A three stroked masterpiece
A LibriVox Listener
The Machine Stops serves as an everbright reminder to humanity, the calamity that can be birthed by us, collectively. It demonstrates flawlessly (despite its slightly absurd situations) the perils of purposefully repressing our natural tendencies as human beings for greater bodily longing uncategorized as solely carnal. I reminds us of the dangers of authority which is not questioned or atleast authority wherein there is no safeguard for failure of such to meet as much of our desires as human beings that does not only comprise of the superficial. I would certainly recommend this novella and I hope you enjoy it.
Abysmal Narrator
Dangerous Journeymann
I've read this short story, and liked it, so I was disappointed by this version & flummoxed by all the positive reviews of this LibriVox Volunteer, who uses a perfectly awful fake English accent, through a nasally voice that grates on the nerves. I may be alone in this, yet I'll be avoiding all further Elizabeth Klett solo books, or chapters.
Thought provoking
Pete
This well read story gives great cause for thought even after 100 years from its first publication. Is this the future of the human race, or is it now the present? Are we in danger of worshipping our present-day machines and neglecting to look up to the hills "from where our hope comes"? Listen and decide for yourself.
Ahead of it's Time!
Mark Shelby
Man busy occuppying himself thru meaningless & superficial "contact" with others? preoccupied with self-congratulatory self-enrichment via lectures on someone's view of someone else's view of yet another's opinion on a topic of which he has no first-hand knowledge or credible source? was this written in the twenty-first century? Nope. barely into the twentieth!!
Just gets going, then ends!
smallsteve
Well read and starts off promisingly, but just when it gets to the beat of the story, it ends! It leaves you with half a story and A feeling of wasted time!