Paper Cuts

A genre of show I like to call a Live Audiobook, essentially, I pick a book, and read it live, over on http://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/ after which, the episodes come up here! Originally, this started out over on St. Ambrose University's online student-run radio, The Stinger. While we mostly focus on works of science fiction, anything family friendly's game around here, as long as reading it won't get me in trouble!

The Moon's Bounty (of Distractions) 09/14/2024

The Moon's Bounty (of Distractions) Now that we're properly underway on our journey to mars, let's get distracted by the moon real quick! Let's be entirely fair, though, if I were handed a ticket to wander around space carte blanche, even in the here and now, if I had the time before my intended destination, I would definitely check out what's going on on the moon before heading anywhere else. I mean, it's right there! It's been a good bit since we've been there! (Notwithstanding the incoming Artemis 2 mission, but that hasn't happened yet, from my perspective! Darn you, inexorable passage of time) That's not the only tangent we go on, either. The heavy focus on existing, real world scientists easily activates my tendency to go "wait, when was this happening? I forget the context, give me a moment..", so if you like the fun facts that come up as we go along, the sort of "real time english class footnotes", there's plenty of that here! Unfortunately, the particular focus on real world people lends to some... Particularly Aged spots in the book. As such, here's the disclaimer! TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation (This one is ESPECIALLY present here) General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/33049702

Edison's Conquest of Mars 09/07/2024

Edison's Conquest of Mars This book really occupies a fascinating niche, to me. In the day and age we're in, the role of unauthorized sequel, if only for copyright law reasons, is most often firmly filled by a fanfiction author. You've got to file the serial numbers if you wanna publish that, buddy! However, in the realm of the public domain (and, by extension, the relatively loosey goosey copyright rules of the late 1800s), you've got free roam to write whatever you like. Didn't like how war of the worlds was set in Britain? Boom, now the martians are invading New York! Didn't think the aliens got their proper walloping after attempting to take over the land of the brave and true? Well, by jove, you're the one who wrote that story about them invading NYC, never you mind that Wells guy, you can just write that tale yourself! Hum? Publisher says you need a recognizable main character for the papers to tell folks about? Howsabout that Thomas Edison guy, he invented the electric light, after all! What's especially fascinating to me is, beneath all this work building on other's work, we've got the debut of an inarguably iconic science fiction weapon: the disintigrator pistol! Bit of an odd origin for something so widely used (and broadly parodied, besides), if you ask me. I'd always figured the disintigrator was from something like a pulp magazine, or maybe one of those Tom Swift stories. to be fair, I'm not too far off, those are Edisonades as well, but nope, this, the originator of that genre name, is where it comes from! Gotta give Daffy Duck a reason to have his pistol dissolve somehow, I suppose. This book is also a great example of why we need the disclaimer! It goes like this: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation (This one is ESPECIALLY present here) General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/32955087

Arcadia Arisen 08/24/2024

Escape to the City 08/17/2024

Repository Committed 08/10/2024

Flowers (And Tension) Is Growing 08/03/2024

A Forest Full of Ideas 07/27/2024

A Forest Full of Ideas It's really interesting, especially from my perspective, the real glory given to what amounts to subsistence farming in solarpunk tales like this. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a known enjoyer of that sort of thing, I have a garden in my backyard for a reason (and it's not just that I have a mighty need for the best feasible tomato for my various tomato needs)! But in my humble opinion, the angle that's going to really return a much more fruitful crop in regards to inspiration is the process of mending things that you've already got on hand. Plants are infamously fickle, and there's a reason a pretty broad spectrum of people's ancestors did absolutely everything possible to claw their way out of that lifestyle (it asks a TON of you, in the line of how much work you've got to get done). However, I've had great success for FAR less time in mending my own clothes, for example. Or, depending on your luck finding good instructions, you can get pretty far fixing up old technology that should be working, but isn't, for some reason! For example, I managed to resurrect a kindle that had a completely depleted battery, with nothing but a simple screwdriver, a battery I snagged on the page that explained how to do it, and maybe 30, 40 minutes? This book kinda leans in that direction, talking about the (genuinely very clever) idea of urban mining, but beyond a passing mention of doing some hand sewing on that kite material, and some (well-deserved!) lauding of the use of color to aid in creativity of the fashion, but lean in! Make visible mending a vital part of the fashion movements! Tell me all about how the screws and easily-acessible batteries make the tech repairable by anyone! It's solarpunk, we're supposed to make the infrastructure a main character after all. (Yes, I should just write my own solarpunk stories that focus on these things) (Yes, I may or may not have written some already) (No, I haven't posted them anywhere... yet!) Want to read the book? Go check it out here: Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine! Last but not least, you want to catch stories live, well before they hit the podcast feed? Check us out, friday evenings, over on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/32134237

Kites Make Flights of Fancy 07/20/2024

Kites Make Flights of Fancy The kite generator mentioned here is actually some really neat tech! I kinda accidentally hit on how they work when we're talking over the potential approaches to a turbine in the kite generation system, essentially, these things take pre-established data on how the windspeed changes based on altitude, and then autonomously pilots it in a neat-looking figure eight pattern, in order to pull a tether out to spin a turbine where the windspeed is high, then move it back down to where the windspeed is low, pulling the kite back in. Interestingly, the article that I found the explanation of the mechanics in noted that the initial pitch for that company's idea was a sort of kite based sail for container ships, but that wasn't exactly an easy sell, (despite being a great idea to lean into in a solarpunk setting, I mean, the less fuel you have to burn to make those big barges go, the better, yknow?) so they pivoted to the kite generator. Anyway, if it's not obvious, there's a lot that you can really sink your teeth into in regards to learning neat stuff that's mentioned in passing in the story, even outside the things that get footnotes. Most of the technology and techniques are either actively being used, or only a few simple steps away from being actively used! Of particular note in my realm of expertise thus far in the story, the use of fractalline encryption, and mesh-based networking, are real processes that can be used. The mesh network in particular would be super handy for communicating through many smaller micronetworks, rather than the way the standard internet browsing experience focuses on a server that needs to be centrally managed. I actually wasn't very surprised to see the callout of that technique, it's a great way to handle a decentralized internet system that works in a similar fashion to those microgrids we're seeing. Anyway, book good! More next week! Want to read the book? Go check it out here: Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine! Last but not least, you want to catch stories live, well before they hit the podcast feed? Check us out, friday evenings, over on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/32133692

Solarpunk means Community! 07/14/2024

Wheelers 07/06/2024

Wheelers The return of author permission happens pretty quickly, turns out! Welcome to Arcadia, a world in which the years and years of using copyright law as a bludgeon to stop people from doing the easy solutions to save the planet has been taken to its logical extreme. Well, that's the perspective of our protagonist, Dana, intially anyway. However, when she can't afford the utility rates on her inherited house any longer, she's taken to an infringement center and summarily jailed. Surprise surprise, though, her brother's some kind of wild-man revolutionary, who lives outside the city. The cops (better known as Fringers, since they handle the result of Infringements) want to learn more about how her brother's surviving in the wastes outside the city, so they hand her a radio, and let a representative of the people outside come get her, in hopes that Dana will snitch. What Dana finds, however, immediately makes her hesitate, and reconsider the shape of the world around her! That's right, this is the solarpunk novel I was rattling on about being excited to read earlier in the season! Don't worry, if you don't know what solarpunk is, I explain it relatively thoroughly, and this book is a superb example of what the genre can do, when written solidly. If you like this first episode, I'd also heartily suggest looking at Miles Past Xanadu, the short story that this novel was expanded out from. That one even has citations in the relevant footnotes, believe it or not! I really love this fledgeling genre, there's a lot to enjoy in it, and like I say in the episode, it's young enough to still have some teeth, y'know? Doesn't just use the punk as a suffix to denote a vibe, it means punk, and has some words for those in power who've been obliterating our climate. Many thanks to Matt Stephens, who was kind enough to let us read the book, I really love the tale, and here's hoping you do, too! Want to read the book? Go check it out here: Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine! Last but not least, you want to catch stories live, well before they hit the podcast feed? Check us out, friday evenings, over on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/32031407

A Floating City? 06/29/2024

A Floating City? Despite my immediate nitpicking of the science that goes on in this particular story, this is actually quite the fun little tale! I mean, it's got everything you'd want from an alien invasion story, random alien nonsense stumbled upon by a put-upon scientist, a random dame that has dubious high society connections, and most of all, the wild threat to New York, dispelled by hastily-thrown-together technobabble solutions! On the note of technobabble, it's really fascinating to me that I don't try NEARLY as hard to unpack the ins and outs of the science in a modern story, but the second these older stories go for any sort of loose accuracy with the science I go "WEll acTUALLY-", and I do wonder if that's more of an issue with my familiarity with the science they're using for the technobabble in particular, or more with the expectations of what science is being used as the base for the technobabble itself, y'know? There's certain key concepts that science fiction nowadays really likes to bend (and break) rules of, but these older stories instead like to wrangle oddities of the electromagnetic rather than the strangeness of the quantum, and I just don't catch on quite as fast, let alone noting how much more of an intuitive sense of electricity and magnetism I have in comparison. Either way, once I get out of my own way, this last little bit of the August issue of Astounding Stories is a real hit! I do provide a disclaimer, since these books are aged and not well-remembered: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31617917

Snake Hands Slither Explosively Fast 06/22/2024

Snake Hands Slither Explosively Fast To be honest, as much as Murder Madness here dragged its feet in getting to the point, I really enjoyed the story as a whole! It's a bit formulaic from a modern perspective, but what isn't in our usual milleu around here, you know? That's kinda a function of the public domain stories we read around here, just for the sheer factor of how many stories build off of the bits and pieces we're finding, sometimes completely unintentionally! For example, here, there's the last act twist of just what the Master was up to the whole time. Bit of a spoiler here, to be fair and honest with you, but it's really not all that much of a shocker, if you ask me, that he's aiming to make some kind of improvement on humanity as a whole, just coincidentally finding himself at the top of the heap? Could see it coming pretty clearly, especially with the reveal of the Master's whole calm, cool, collected affect a bit earlier in the story. I do provide a disclaimer, since these books are aged and, often, not well-remembered: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31610237

Cubes of Flame, Gnomes of Tongue 06/15/2024

Cubes of Flame, Gnomes of Tongue What do you think is the deal with these Gnomes? I mean, it's not really unpacked in the story very far, but it's kinda gently implied there's a sort of queen-and-workers sort of vibe going on. Sure, it's probably just there to give Sarka a target for this whole superiority schtick, but I'm the type of person to wonder about the ecology of a foreign planet after we've read the story they're set on. Sure, sure, I'm not too worried about it when we're in the middle of reading the tale, mostly because a lot of the stories we read aroud here just sort of glaze over that sort of thing, but I genuinely think between Dune and all the solarpunk I've been reading I'm stuck like this! Even if the framing often makes no sense to the modern eye, there's plenty to enjoy in these old books. As I've made very clear, I'm a known enjoyer of these short story collections strictly BECAUSE they're not all polished and perfect. There's so much more room to take risky, big swings in the case of a shorter story, y'know? I do provide a disclaimer, since these books are aged and not well-remembered: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31609072

Assume Cubic Gnomes in a Lunar Vaccuum... 06/08/2024

Assume Cubic Gnomes in a Lunar Vaccuum... If you're a bit lost on what's happening in Earth, the Marauder, I'd heartily suggest checking out the previous issue of Astounding, the July Issue! We did indeed read that in a previous episode of the show, just check the titles, I always title the first episode of a given thing with the title of the book, so that should make the July issue pretty easy to find! Well, hopefully anyway. Even if not, a good most of the time, these serialized stories usually do a great job of reminding you what you missed. They kind of have to, y'know? Since not everybody caught every issue, and you didn't wanna wind up completely lost if you missed a trip to the newstand, that's the tact I'd take, anyway. Either way, the tale on display here really has its ups and its downs. Loads of fun concepts, but some of them it REALLY doesn't pull off. At least, if you can't stand to hear this one, it's not going to hang around forever! That's the glory of these short story collections, the stuff you don't like doesn't loom large. Sure, that comes with the downside of the things you like not sticking around too long, but some of these stories would need MAJOR reworks to be any longer than they were written here. I do provide a disclaimer, since these books are aged and not well-remembered: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31608862

A Second, Subterranean, Satellite 06/01/2024

A Second, Subterranean, Satellite You never know what you'll happen to find beneath the earth in these oddball little pulp stories we read here on the show. Could it be some sort of monster? Perhaps a whole society of people we've been missing out on interacting with? Maybe, even, depending on the day, some sort of giant aeomeba that just wants to burble about for a while! That's not even to mention the absolutely madcap volume of oddities you'll find just above the average cruising altitude of a plane, I mean, an entire planet full of blood-drinking frog men, just hanging out up there is just the start of things! Don't even get me started on what they found beyond the heaviside layer, or up there on the moon! But enough listing possibilities from me, you'll have to listen to the episode itself if you want to know just what we find not only on the second satellite, but beneath the silver dome, as well. I might have invoked the disclaimer in this one? either way, here it is: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31428777

A Very Sleepy Satellite 05/25/2024

A Very Sleepy Satellite Don't let my sleepy, dozy demeanor fool you here, gang, I had just had a long day at the time! This tale is quite the ride, a whole second planet just hanging out within the easy reach of an airplane? Wild! I mean, the physics of something like that would be turning the world upside down, but who needs physics when you've got a waterworld full of frog-men who seem to subsist on the blood of the other people who live on the planet? You really don't find plots this wild outside the pulps, people! You're really going to want to tune in to next week's episode if that concept interests you at all, this really evolves into quite the story! I do provide a disclaimer, since these books are aged and not well-remembered: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31345697

An Embarrassment of Riches 05/18/2024

An Embarrassment of Riches Indeed, we do stumble into quite the bevy of delights as we delve farther and farther into the past with this particular issue of Astounding Stories. Sure, it's already quite the delight to discover a new saga in the tale we've heard previously in Earth, the Marauder, but in addition to that, we're well on our way to finding other short stories that boggle the mind! As an aside, I mention a more modern short story collection out front, and I would love to stress to authors: I am more than willing to discuss featuring your work on the show! Guarding Gus, our first episode of the third season, is far from a fluke in terms of the stories I'm hoping to feature on the show going forward. If you've got some writing you feel would be a particularly good fit, feel free to shoot me an email at , and we can talk about what that might look like for you! Back on topic, though, I really do believe that short story collections can contain startling volumes of incredibly compelling work. I'm not sure I've mentioned it on the show, but there's a particular short story that I've been chasing for YEARS, that I first read in high school, and didn't write down the title of, and cannot find for the LIFE of me. In short, it was in a black-covered science fiction anthology that was about to be weeded out of the school library, and the only two major stories I remember have stuck with me ever since: one set in a society where time is used as currency, which opens with a scene of a group of street buskers doing some performance art, wherein they set their internal clocks to tick down simultaneously, such that the mob they were standing in instead causes them to fall, spelling out MEMENTO MORI in a town square. The other swings a bit more horriffic, as a young woman struggles against the thrall of a claude glass, each time she stares, finding herself more and more strongly compelled to never look at anything else. There's a particularly vivid passage of her describing how a lizard that wandered into the house looks after staring into the claude glass, her perception of color forced into eye-popping contrast in comparison to life as it was before. The sheer vividity of these two stories as they impressed themselves into my then-younger mind has really instilled in me a drive to check out these short story collections, there's some real gems in there! Not just the yearly anthology issues, either, there's great stuff in the monthlies, too. Remind me to talk about Optopia on the live stream, sometime, you'll hear about some fantastic solarpunk yarns. Also of note, our content disclaimer: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31329572

Astounding Stories, August 1930 05/11/2024

Astounding Stories, August 1930 As I've been known to mention a great many times, I absolutely love the wonderful short stories on hand in these old pulp magazines. Sure, they're not exactly always a hit, but when the author nails what they're going for? It's really going to shine! I mean, picture just how many incredibly famous pieces of what forms not only the english class "canon", but also those works that prove definitional to a genre, most especially genre that was then-niche, but now having a moment in the sun, like science fiction, or cyberpunk! (If you're looking at modern story magazines, you can even find things that I feel define essential modern genres, like solarpunk, as well!) Gush as much as I like about these magazines, unfortunately August is the last Astounding issue we're going to be reading outright, directly like this. We don't know it at the time of this recording, but going forward, I'm going to be shifting the focus when it comes to Astounding, leaning in to its strengths as a provider of short stories. We'll, rather than reading the issues all in one run, instead be adding pieces of the issue to act as bonus tales, when a story ends a bit earlier than I was expecting it to. Perhaps I'll add a little tag to the description of the episodes which feature astounding episodes, for my fellow serialized short story enjoyers! All that said, I hope you enjoy this particular issue of Astounding! As we work our way through the issue, we finish up that Earth the Marauder story that's been being chipped away at! Really, quite the fun twists in store here, as they wrangle their way through the whole conquering space whatnot. Reminds me of how science fiction tends to rhyme, we have this back in the 30s, and now there's tales of societies that prove a dyson sphere doesn't have quite enough energy, and instead propel their planet out of its original orbit, in hopes of finding more resources to work with. Wild to think about! I don't think the disclaimer came up this time, but here it is anyway: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (Astounding Stories, August 1930) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31245872

Guarding Gus 05/04/2024

Guarding Gus Welcome, welcome welcome, to season 3 of Paper Cuts! As you heard in the opening of the podcast, we're shifting our release model. Rather than innundating you with approximately eight hours of material all at once, that you then have to sort out how to listen to, we're instead cutting the stream down into managable, bite size even, 1 hour and 30 minute chunks. You're still getting the same great Live Audiobook content we know and love here at Paper Cuts, but I'm doing all the wrangling of squashing it down into a cleaner timeframe! Fittingly, the first episode of our third season also debuts our other huge shift (well, the one that's audible to you listeners): we've got some modern books now! Thanks to the gracious permissions of several very generous authors, I get to showcase some books published outside the public domain. We've picked an absolutely fantastic starting point here, in showing off what I'd comfortably call a "shareware demo" of Guarding Gus, by Karryn Nagel. Don't let that put you off, however, even the first five chapters of this book are an absolute blast, as we dive into the world of a Multnomah changed by the (relatively) recent addition of things quite fantastical to our own world. We follow the foibles of two young men, Brant and Nico, as they struggle to pin down just what our title character, Gustopher, has roped them into, despite being an adorable baby gargoyle. I immediately fell in love with the characters on display here, Nico just wants his quiet little life with his quiet little bonsai, but his whole world is turned upside down on wanting to make sure everyone has stayed safe, only to find that a) he's been adopted by a local extrovert (in Brant) and b) now he's got to take care of this little baby alongside a guy who he barely knows! Oh, and it's a bit of a reverse heist situation, too, as the local leader of what amounts to the magic mob was originally planning on having Gustopher as a showpiece in his menagerie! I really enjoyed the heck out of the first five chapters of this book, and I really hope you do too! Enough time has passed since the friday this episode came out that you can not only acquire this book through digital booksellers, but also physical copies, and it's available to your local libraries, too! There was a bit of a wait while we were originally airing, but like I've done the organizing for you, I've also done the waiting. Enough waiting, in fact, that the sequel to Guarding Gus, What to Suspect when You're Suspecting, has actually been announced! (Karryn, if you want me to do a demo of that one too, you'd hear no complaints from me, that's for sure!) There's a lot of really good stories coming down the road with this season, and I hope you enjoy the changes I'm making on the backend! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! Want to catch up in a video format? Check out the youtube channel! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31124713

The Lost World 04/29/2024

The Lost World Ah, the very last episode of this season! We start to get into the lush world of Arthur Conan Doyle's most popular (non-sherlock) writing, and discover that HOO BOY does that professor have some feelings on the matter of the people he met and the places he went. Well, that, and he really doesn't care for the press. He just wants to be right and have people know he's right, without all the fuss of proving it. Sounds like he'd fit right in on the internet, howsabout we get this guy a podcast, huh? I mean, a radio show would be more appropriate to the time, setting, and theme, but I'd love to see such oddities that an anachronistic old fogey like this would cause! Additionally of note, this month's episodes are the last ones of season 2, and as we come to season 3, starting in May, we'll be having a different release schedule! That's right, we're finally shifting to weekly episodes, much to the joy of everyone who didn't have time for multiple 3 to 4 hour journeys dropping all at once at the end of the month! No more having to ration out episodes of your favorite books to tide you over, I'll be spreading things out manually! Isn't that exciting? I don't think the disclaimer came up this time, but here it is anyway: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (The Lost World) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31025243

To Choke a Morlock 04/29/2024

To Choke a Morlock Unsurprisingly, I really breeze through books I know well here on the show, but unfortunately, that also means a goodly sized number of my favorites really are here today, then gone next week. So, while we really did have a blast reading The Time Machine, it's all over now. Well, that is, if it ever even happened? The book is sure insistent on being unsure. Either way, there's so much to enjoy about H.G.'s writing, especially in the hits like this one. As for the short story we got through, it's always a pleasant surprise to see someone realizing the concerning pattern that invasive species can get you into, and that goes double for planets that aren't earth! Come to think of it, we'll have to work out some kind of safe decontamination procedure when it comes to interstellar travel, as even a healthy person's microbiome could wreak major havoc on the little creatures we can't manage to see on even uninhabited planets, maybe I've got something there? Actually, come to think, I've got a better idea involving a sourdough starter and a planet full of gluten... Before I get too off topic, a little notice! This month's episodes are the last ones of season 2, and as we come to season 3, starting in May, we'll be having a different release schedule! That's right, we're finally shifting to weekly episodes, much to the joy of everyone who didn't have time for multiple 3 to 4 hour journeys dropping all at once at the end of the month! No more having to ration out episodes of your favorite books to tide you over, I'll be spreading things out manually! Isn't that exciting? I don't think the disclaimer came up this time, but here it is anyway: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to grab the book to read along with us? check it out here, free of charge! (The Time Machine) (To Choke an Ocean) Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord! Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/31025123

The Time Machine 03/31/2024

And So the Wizard Baked a Cake... 03/31/2024

And So the Wizard Baked a Cake... First off, major points to the wizard of oz movie, not only is it the delightful classic we all love to see, they really didn't miss much in the way of adapation, in my humble opinion. Sure, sure, they cut the porcelain people, but they're not really of much consequence to the story at large. My only real complaint proper was cutting the expansion on the backstory of the flying monkeys, which, to be fair, was mostly just nice to know. I'm not really quite sure where they could have managed to put in the details about the crown that commands the monkeys in the sequences of the movie, given that understanding of all that is basically the window onto the whole lore of them being bound in servitude to the witch thanks to it? I guess they could have kinda stuck the power onto the ruby slippers, maybe even not outright making it a magical effect of the slippers (which then allows you to keep the magical reveal later), but have it be an old trade deal between the kingdom of the west and the monkeys that says they owe favors to the holder of the ruby slippers? Either way, what a delightful tale that was! And that's not to discount the short stories we read in this episode, either, mind you. Just how many times have you seen the time dilation plot actually go the way it went in "So They Baked A Cake...", huh? I certainly found myself reeling at the results, not just once while I was reading it, but twice while I was editing the episode, even! Don't get me started on that glowworm guy, though... Want to read along with us? Find the book (and short stories) here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51414 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23104 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67362 Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? (Like, say, the many sequels to this book?) Discord's great for that! https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn/ Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/ /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/30608863

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 02/29/2024

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz We're off on a journey into what the author, L. Frank Baum, calls a modern fairytale, to see another one of the real hits of the public domain, this time digging into the antics of not just Dorothy, but all her delightful friends, besides! Well, really, we meet her major enemy as well, and what most people would call (and I'm putting this charitably here) a charlatan! A con man, even! Well, I mean, how else would you ask me to interpret those required green sunglasses, huh? Confused as to what I'm on about? You've got to listen to the episode, then! It's different from the movie, you know! Not a huge volume, different, mind you, but different nonetheless! Keep a close ear on things, and maybe you'll catch just what's up there, I found it quite a fun game when I was listening to edit the episode down. Want to read along with us? Find the book here: Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? (Like, say, the many sequels to this book?) Discord's great for that! Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! Disclaimer time! TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but IÂ do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/30161703

Forgetha? Is that what the planet is called? 02/29/2024

Forgetha? Is that what the planet is called? With a name like The Forgotten Planet, you immediately wonder what's going to cause someone to forget a WHOLE PLANET, but this particular tale really takes us on some twists and turns before we find out just what's going on, there. As I say, a lot of these old short story collections from the public domain have a surprising quantity of solid concepts, writing, and even execution! Aren't you glad I go trawling through the massive libraries of text available to find only the best for the show? I even read it aloud, just for you! You'd never think some of this would have an audiobook of any sort, let alone a live one! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! Disclaimer time! TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but IÂ do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/30161558

An Astounding Volume of Aliens 02/01/2024

An Astounding Volume of Aliens From high in the air, there is a terror descending upon us. No, no, not like that, it's some kind of menace in the air lanes! Well, if we're getting out of the way of that, we should head to space proper! Need something really special? Why not head for someplace uncharted! Well, I've heard tell of a forgotten planet that'd have all sorts of neat stuff within. Ah, I see, I see, you don't have the stomach for space travel, well, there's quite the series of events going on down south, if you've still got the taste for adventure. It's really quite the tale, there's zombies, mesmerism, derring-do, the whole nine yards! Okay, alright, none of that sounds good, just stick at home and discover this fantastic tale of a wonderful new scientific discovery! None of that sound good? Give the episode a listen anyway, I only described some of the Astounding short stories on offer in this episode! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29198 Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn/ Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! Disclaimer: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/29741558

Astounding Stories, July 1930 01/31/2024

Astounding Stories, July 1930 Celebrating a huge milestone for the twitch audience, we dive into another issue of Astounding Stories! This time, in the July 1930 issue, we'll dive into many stories, not the least of which being one in which we learn of a world blocked from its final frontier. What lies beyond the heaviside layer? What noble heroes may operate the flyer managing to plumb the depths of this, our darkest sea? And most importantly, will the reporter make it back in time to get that front page byline? Of course, as usual, the easiest way to find out is listening to this episode of Paper Cuts! (Can you tell I've been listening to some Old Time Radio in place of podcasts lately?) Seriously though, I want to extend a hearty thanks to you all for finally getting us over the hill of affiliate-ship, twitch has a lot of really fun stuff you can do once that's underway, and I've been brewing up some loyalty redeems using those tools that'll be real neat! And hey, you can even subscribe to kick me a little money, if you'd like! Disclaimer, as noted in the episode: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29198 Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn/ Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/ /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/29741538

Stony Reception from This Crowd! 12/16/2023

Stony Reception from This Crowd! Our time in the Crystal Age, brief as though it has been, made for quite the tale! Loads of twists and turns have lead us throughout this stunning little pastoral view of a future that did not come to pass. How they went for our main character? Well, you've heard two thirds of it already, so I'm sure you'll enjoy the remaining piece! I know, I know, I say I enjoy every story we wind up reading on the show, but this one's really got some potential to an adaptation! Maybe it's just the huge isekai glut I've been getting, wtaching some anime here and there with my partner, but I really think this hits the beats of that fish-out-of-water, man-out-of-time tale really fantastically, and there's some really fun details to work with in the general worldbuilding, too! I mean, look at how they treat music, for example, and with what reverence they view the written word and the books in which they're bound, there's room for potentially even something beyond, say, a simple film! I think it'd be quite fascinating to see how a tabletop rpg campaign would look in what details we get here, perhaps something designed to travel from one somewhat isolated city to another and experience the differences between them! Honestly that gives me an idea, these old "I was sent to the future!" public domain stories really have a specific vibe to them, I wonder if I could make a game Powered By The Apocalypse to address those genre conventions... Much to consider. The disclaimer does come up in this episode! Here's the full text: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7401 Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn/ Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/ /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/29105993

Literacy is a Gift! 12/16/2023

Literacy is a Gift! As we continue the tale of our intrepid isekai protagonist, we find that he is, unlike the standard isekai lad, having trouble with the local language. That darn semantic shift, it really does come for us all! Luckily, we're not quite so impacted by this trouble, unless you're also digging up old and middle english texts (like I've been doing offscreen, considering giving a few a read for the show!). However, like the isekai protagonists who do struggle with literacy, he's got a teacher, and one he seems to be developing quite the fondness for! How does that fondness develop? Well, that's a question you're going to have to listen to the episode to find out the answer to. The disclaimer hasn't come up in this book quite yet, as I recall, but here's the full text anyway, as it's important to know what's up with these old books: TL;DR up front: Paper Cuts is almost all public domain stuff, and some of it hasn't aged well. I'll be doing my best to warn you, but I'm not changing any of it, I don't believe censorship is the path forward here. Paper Cuts, by necessity, has to be a majority books that are in the US public domain. That means it's almost exclusively going to be content produced in the 1920s, or earlier. These works may have aspects that have not aged well to a modern viewer/listener. Now, I'm never one for censorship, but I do believe we are entitled to being able to filter the leisure content we don't want to see. So, this results in the following policy: I'll do my level best to warn you, the viewer, at the beginning of the episode, what's likely to come up. A great example is something like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which had some passages describing natives of various places in a fashion I'd charitably describe as unkindly. In cases where something sneaks up on me unwarned, I will be reading the content unedited, with my sincerest apologies for the lack of active warning. All that said, I'm gonna cover my bases with some common warnings that have come up often in books I've read before: Descriptions of "savage natives" Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation General mistreatment and misrepresentation of cultures Generally speaking, if something I'm reading is on the page? Don't expect me to have opinions aligning with it. We're here to have fun, not disparage people! Want to read along with us? Find the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7401 Have opinions you want to share, or want to suggest books? Discord's great for that! https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn/ Want to listen live? Drop by Fridays, over on twitch! https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/ /episode/index/show/papercutsbooks/id/29105968

A Crystal Age 08/31/2023

Paper Cuts

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