I finished and thoughroughly enjoyed The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster. A novelette first published in 1909, it's the first modern dystopia AFAIK, prior to 1984, Brave New World or Anthem. The poetic prose captured my attention and there's something to be said about the prophetizing skills of Forster, depicting a dystopian society of antisocial iconoclasts living isolated in cubicles comunicating through audio-visual tubes with their "audience" resemble so much these fakebook days...
some favorite quotes in a book where they figure aplenty:
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Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.
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The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I knew that it was an exception, and rejoiced.
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Your descendants will be even in a better position than you, for they will learn what you think I think, and yet another intermediate will be added to the chain. And in time there will come a generation that had got beyond facts, beyond impressions, a generation absolutely colourless, a generation seraphically free from taint of personality, which will see the French Revolution not as it happened, but as it would have happened, had it taken place in the days of the Machine.
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highly recommended
