The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story (1909) by E. M. Forster.
Summary and commentary taken from NYU's Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database:
In this story, Earth's inhabitants have moved below terra firma where their every need is met and every act controlled by "the machine." A young rebel protesting against the loss of authenticity and the reverence for abstraction seeks to communicate with his mother about his need to go to the surface of the earth. This act of direct experience terrifies his mother who is sure that her son will be sentenced to "homelessness." The son does experience the beauty of the earth and returns to prophesize the end of the machine and the "civilization" it created.
One of several "fantasies" written by E.M. Forster prior to World War I, "The Machine Stops" was written as "a counterblast to one of the heavens of H.G. Wells" (from the preface to the collection). Forster's prescient notions include cinemataphoes (machines which project visual images) and the ability for instantaneous simultaneous correspondence with multiple persons (E-mail!).Summary
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