Who wrote the short story "The Machine Stops"?

"The Machine Stops" is a 1909 science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. It's probably his best-known short story. The story’s influence can arguably be seen on George Orwell’s "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Ray Bradbury’s "Fahrenheit 451", and Charlie Brooker’s "Black Mirror".

The plot tells the story of a mother and son - Vashti and Kuno - who live in a post-apocalyptic world where people live individually in underground pods, and have their needs provided for by the all-encompassing Machine.

It is a world where travel is rare, inhabitants communicate via video screens, and people have become so reliant on the Machine that they have begun to worship it as a living entity.

Edward Morgan Forster (London, England, January 1, 1879 – Coventry, Warwickshire, June 7, 1970) was an English novelist, essayist, and social and literary critic. His fame rests largely on his novels "Howards End" (1910) and "A Passage to India" (1924) and on a large body of criticism.

He attended Tonbridge School, which he hated; he caricatured what he termed "public school behavior" in several of his novels. A different atmosphere awaited him at King's College, Cambridge, which he enjoyed thoroughly. After graduation, he began to write short stories.¿

He wrote "Where Angels Fear to Tread" (1905), "The Longest Journey" (1907), "A Room with a View" (1908), "The Celestial Omnibus (and other stories)" (1911), and "The Eternal Moment and other stories" (1928), among others.