Machine Stops (version 4)

Written by E. M. Forster

Narrated by Phil Chenevert

The Machine Stops is a science fiction story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in 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 story is particularly notable for predicting new technologies such as instant messaging and the Internet. In the preface to his Collected Short Stories (1947), Forster wrote that "The Machine Stops is a reaction to one of the earlier heavens of H. G. Wells." Although not all Wells's stories were optimistic about the future, this implies Forster was concerned about human dependence on technology. - Summary by Wikipedia

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

E. M. Forster

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) was an English novelist. Born in London to an Anglo-Irish mother and a Welsh father, Forster moved with his mother to Rooks Nest, a country house in rural Hertfordshire, in 1883, following his father’s death from tuberculosis. He received a sizeable inheritance from his great-aunt, which allowed him to pursue his studies and support himself as a professional writer. Forster attended King’s College, Cambridge, from 1897 to 1901, where he met many of the people who would later make up the legendary Bloomsbury Group of such writers and intellectuals as Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and John Maynard Keynes. A gay man, Forster lived with his mother for much of his life in Weybridge, Surrey, where he wrote the novels A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature sixteen times without winning, Forster is now recognized as one of the most important writers of twentieth century English fiction, and is remembered for his unique vision of English life and powerful critique of the inequities of class.

Reviews for Machine Stops (version 4)

[mimipark · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The nerve of this company scibd. The selections for audiobooks are more and more Librebox and less of the good quality record labels read by distinguished actors and professional readers. Why am I paying a monthly membership for librebox recordings? These are free in the public domain. And the quality is very bad, read by amateur volunteers. They change readers during the book, sometimes as often as every chapter, ruining the continuity of the storyteller.
A lot of these amateur volunteers are no fun to listen to. It ruins my interest in the book. I will be canceling my subscription.