summary of the book

the Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) by E. M. Forster. (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. It was voted one of the best novels up to 1965, it is in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories.[1] In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame.


The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Now they live in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the Machine. Travel is permitted but is unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made as a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine called the speaking apparatus, with which people conduct their only activity, they sharing ideas and knowledge. The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, live on opposite sides of the world. Vashti is content with her life, which, like most people of that world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing secondhand 'ideas'. Kuno, however, is a sensualist and a rebel. He tells Vashti that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission, and without the life support apparatus supposedly required to survive in the toxic outer air, and he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine. However, the Machine recaptured him, and he has been threatened with 'Homelessness', that is, expulsion from the underground environment and sent to the surface of the earth which means death. Vashti, however, dismisses her son's concerns as dangerous madness and returns to her part of the world.


As time passes, Vashti continues the routine of her daily life, and there are two important developments. First, the life support apparatus required to visit the outer world is abolished. Secondly, a kind of religion is re-established, in which the Machine is the object of worship. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own – like a god. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and threatened with Homelessness. 


During this time, Kuno is transferred to a cell near Vashti's. He comes to believe that the Machine is breaking down, and tells her, "The Machine Stops." Vashti does not believe him and continues with her life, but eventually there are some strange things that appear in the Machine.  For example, when people use the book try to call a bed, the bed never comes out. At first, humans accept those things as the whim of the Machine, which they now totally accepted. But the situation get worse and worse, as the knowledge of how to repair the Machine has been lost. Finally the Machine collapses, bringing 'civilization' down with it