The Machine Stops 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 room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is permitted, but is unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is also made via a kind of machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge. In such a suffocating atmosphere Kuno, a man dares to think and do the unmentionable, that is, question the omnipotence of the faulty machine God…. E. M. Forster (1879–1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. A Passage to India (1924) brought him his greatest success and he was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 different years.
