Been a busy week for me, so I wasn't able to read Neutron Star (might post my thoughts in a few days); but since I'm already familiar with The Machine Stops, here's a contribution:

I first encountered this story in a 50 cent paperback compilation from the early 60s called 17X Infinity. Even then, this story was considered to be old. Here's the editor's notes from that paperback:

This story was written in 1909- the year that the Wright brothers formed their first corporation to manufacture "airships," and the year that the first radio "S-O-S" was ever sent- by Jack Binns, when his ship, the S.S. Republic, collided with the S.S. Florida. There were no hints of modern television, cybernetics, push-button living, intercommunication systems or fallout shelters. None of these bits of paraphernalia of the modern Machine that Forster imagines were in existence in those verdant days. Remember all this as you read this vision of the future by a thoughtful philosopher and one of the greatest prose stylists of our time.

Mr. Forster wrote the editor on February 10, 1962, concerning the origins of the story: "I have not the least recollection of what set it going, but it was a protest against one of the earlier heavens of H.G. Wells. It was variously judged and on the whole unfavourably. I remember reading it to a few friends, and the sole comment was 'Too long.' " The story was first published, according to Mr. Forster, "in a long-defunct and brief-lived periodical, The Oxford and Cambridge Review."

It must give the author a grimly ironic feeling, now, almost fifty-five years later, to read of plans for building underground cities against atomic attack. That was one invention he did not predict: the nuclear bomb.

I absolutely love this story for its predictions, because we can really see their reflections in the world today. We're increasingly glued to our own screens and isolating each other physically or through body language, tapping at keyboards and getting most of our entertainment through the internet in a way that the editor of 17X probably wouldn't be able to predict himself in 1962. We do this through computers and phones that many people see as "magic boxes" that they can't repair themselves. We "lecture" each other, either through a vlog on YouTube or simply by typing up posts like this. There's a diagnosible condition, agoraphobia, for the fear of the outdoors. With the impending effects of climate change, even the respirators don't seem that far off.

I do think the appeal comes from the way it's aged; read at the time, I'd understand why it would get bad reviews. It's a fairly boring ramble in that context I'd imagine. However, as its predictions have come true, its commentary on human nature becomes more relevant- and that's why it's interesting. Are we as a species really so predictable that it was possible to visualize so relatively accurately what we'd be like in the future? Given the negativity of the prediction, should that disturb us at all?