It’s Free Audio Friday, and today Elizabeth is featuring her LibriVox recording of E. M. Forster’s classic work of science fiction, The Machine Stops. You can download it for free here; you can also listen to it as part of a podcast at SFFAudio. For those familiar with Forster’s well-known novels (and their film versions) such as A Room With a View, Howards End and A Passage to India, this novella might come as a surprise. Written in 1909, the story 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 “cell,” with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. It’s a startlingly prescient tale from Forster – happy listening!

(The image is a screen shot from a short film inspired by the story, which you can watch at Vimeo.)