The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

Originally published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review, Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd, London, November 1909

 

This story "set in a world where humanity lives underground and relies on a giant machine to provide its needs, predicted technologies similar to instant messaging and the Internet." (Wikipedia)

David Suisman's Selling Sounds, describes this "machine-dominated subterranian dystopia," as a place "where music is available everywhere via music-tubes and the experience of life on earth's surface is captured and preserved through phonograph records and movies." (1)

The following first page of Chapter 1 (The Airship) is a copy of the pdf page created by The University of California, Davis.

 

To read the rest of "The Machine Stops" go to The University of California, Davis web page. Additionally, there are public domain audio books on the intranet of this story.