The Machine Stops is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) 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. In 1973 it 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.
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Exploring class division, social hypocrisy, and human connection in early twentieth-century British society, Howards End offered a penetrating critique of Edwardian conventions through the memorable epigraph "Only connect". The English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and librettist E. M. Forster established himself as an insightful observer of interpersonal dynamics and cultural friction across his novels, short fiction, and critical prose.
Born Edward Morgan Forster in London on January 1, 1879, he was raised by his mother following the early death of his architect father in 1880. He attended Tonbridge School before studying classics and history at King's College, Cambridge, from 1897 to 1901. Inheriting financial independence, he traveled extensively across Europe, particularly Italy, which inspired his early novels Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and A Room With a View (1908). He later lectured at the Working Men's College in London, served as a Red Cross volunteer worker during World War I, and spent time in India, an experience that informed his final novel A Passage to India (1924). In addition to his fiction, he co-authored the libretto for Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd (1951) and was awarded the Order of Merit and Order of the Companions of Honour.
Forster's literary style combines ironic humor, well-plotted narratives, and a humanistic approach toward understanding and sympathy. His work consistently examines class differences, hypocrisy, and attitudes toward gender and homosexuality in early twentieth-century British society. Beyond his social realism, his 1909 story The Machine Stops anticipated technological dystopian fiction by portraying a dependent humanity isolated within an automated global system.
