Rarely do they even leave their own rooms, in which all of their needs are met by the Machine. The Machine allows the humans to communicate "ideas" with one another, which is essentially their only activity. It doesn't stop them from leaving their rooms, but they have little desire to do so anyway. They've started to believe the Machine is omnipotent and omniscient, not to be questioned. And when it begins to malfunction, they trust that it knows what it's doing--forgetting they invented it in the first place . . .From the author of A Passage to India, A Room with a View, and other classic novels, and a sixteen-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, this remarkable science fiction story, which was included in a Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology, was published in 1909--yet becomes more relevant and thought-provoking with each passing day of the twenty-first century.

    Upon discovering the rumors to be true, the young widow ends up forming a special companionship with the ghost of handsome former sea captain Daniel Gregg. Through the struggles of supporting her children, seeking out romance from the wrong places, and working to publish the captain's story as a book, Blood and Swash, Lucy finds in her secret relationship with Captain Gregg a comfort and blossoming love she never could have predicted. Originally published in 1945, made into a movie in 1947, and later adapted into a television sitcom in 1968, this romantic tale explores how love can develop without boundaries, both in this life and beyond.