The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster Review

Hosts Eric Bueschlen and Chris Herzberg wonder about The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Our hosts get right into it with all of the sci-fi connections this story has and it was written in 1909! The Starship Enterprise has visited more than one planet that has problems because they forgot who built the machine that protects them; the same is true in The Machine Stops. E.M. Forster creates a frightening world where people are hooked into a machine afraid to go into the polluted outside world; like in The Matrix, the main character Neo wakes up in an amniotic pod to a very different life he was living, like Logan's Run where society is so afraid of leaving the domes they live in that they allow a culling at the age of 30 to curb population. These stories strongly connect to Vishti's pod and her son, Kuno's journey to escape the machine. How could E.M. Forster have known so much about 100 years into his future? Respect.