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.