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Forster the machine stops5/7/2023 ![]() The story has long been a staple of science fiction anthologies and, in 1966, it was filmed by Philip Savile for the BBC’s anthology series, Out of the Unknown. The meaning of ‘The Machine Stops’ has proved remarkably multivalent. At the same time, though, Forster’s sole foray into scientific romance has grown in stature since the early 1990s. ![]() ![]() Too many Merchant and Ivory productions, perhaps. With the exception of his novel, A Passage to India (1924), which remains of interest to postcolonial scholars, Forster’s standing has slipped within the academy. Forster’s fable, ‘The Machine Stops’, which was first published in the Oxford and Cambridge Review in November 1909. ![]() The science fiction tale not only comments upon a burgeoning screen culture but also on our diminishing capacity to visualise and share an alternative reality, writes Paul March-Russel. Forster’s 1909 fable, ‘The Machine Stops’ - which depicts a world state in which the inhabitants live inside vast underground cities, isolated from one another except for an electronic mass communications network - is a powerful story of technological alienation. ![]()
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