The Machine Stops 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 room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.

The Machine Stops 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 room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.

The Machine Stops 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 room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine.

"The War Prayer", a short story or prose poem by Mark Twain, is a scathing indictment of war, and particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war.

An unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the hills west of the fictional town of Arkham, Massachusetts.

"2BR02B" is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B" and references the famous phrase "to be, or not to be" from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the story, the title refers to the telephone number that one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination.

On New Year's Day around 1900, astronomers announce that the orbit of the planet Neptune has become erratic.

Incongruously, a wizard lives on the top floor of a tenement in an unnamed American city. Disturbed by peddlers and vendors knocking on his door, the wizard consults his neighbor, a glassblower.