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 hap...
Sep 14, 2024•55 min•Season 3Ep. 19
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 Bri...
Sep 07, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Well then! Dana learned quite a powerful lesson from this book, I'd say. I suggest you take some of what we've heard to heart, too, yknow? The planet will thank you, even if some of that thanking will have to be done indirectly. I really loved reading this book on stream, and re-hearing the story as I was editing the episodes down for the podcast was quite the delight. It's got me motivated in a major way to keep trying my best to bring some small mote of what's on display here into my own life....
Aug 24, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Season 3Ep. 17
To be honest with you, this final act that's going on in this week's episode and the next really nails home how crushing it can feel to know there could be solutions to the sort of problems we've been experiencing of late. Well, that, and the commentary being made about the ins and outs of copyright and the importance of using that carefully! (Unstartlingly, the author is quite an advocate for Open Source, but it's also got a lot to say about corporations using the DMCA as a bludgeon) I'm really...
Aug 17, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 3Ep. 16
We inch ever closer to the answer of WHY the city does things like this in this episode, and man, does Stephens really nail the sheer confusion of someone introduced to these concepts from step one just right with the way Dana does things. There's a pervading sense of "Well if there's a better way, why aren't we bothering?" throughout this section of the book, sometimes to the point of almost feeling like we're the ones being talked to. (Which, don't get me started on how that's such a thin line...
Aug 10, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 3Ep. 15
We're finally getting some resolution on what was set up out front, and hoo boy, it's getting TENSE in a MAJOR WAY this time, folks! I mean, you knew it was gonna be difficult the second she decided to keep the Particular Item from the Fringers, but wow, we really have that drop at perhaps the worst possible time, not to mention just how difficult things are getting with the general conflict between the two major players here, y'know? Honestly, I could really wax on for a long time about the bea...
Aug 03, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 3Ep. 14
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 o...
Jul 27, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 13
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 i...
Jul 20, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Phew! We made it out of the city! Luckily, now that we've got that place well behind us, we're able to see the true thrust of the world that made me fall in love with the genre as a whole, and Arcadia in specific. The technology on display being so, so close to what we've got these days is remarkably motivating, at least, in my humble opinion. I do go on in the show itself about it, most especially appealing to me being the building of aeroponic gardens in the spare storage space of the Rigs. If...
Jul 14, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 3Ep. 11
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, t...
Jul 06, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Season 3Ep. 10
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 ...
Jun 29, 2024•1 hr 35 min•Season 3Ep. 9
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...
Jun 22, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 3Ep. 8
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 beca...
Jun 15, 2024•52 min•Season 3Ep. 7
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...
Jun 08, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 6
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 ...
Jun 01, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 3Ep. 5
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! ...
May 25, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 4
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 willin...
May 18, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 3
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 sci...
May 11, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 3Ep. 2
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 squash...
May 04, 2024•1 hr 48 min•Season 3Ep. 1
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?...
Apr 29, 2024•2 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 47
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...
Apr 29, 2024•3 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 46
Once again, I return to a personal favorite of mine, this time in The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells. As I note in the episode, I absolutely fell in LOVE with h.g.'s writing as a kid, there's just so much to enjoy, even divorced of context as I originally read it. The Time Machine in particular, though, really shines if you learn more of the context this book was written in. It's actually quite a biting commentary on the aggressive stratification of that era's society, and what an extrapolation of ...
Mar 31, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 2Ep. 45
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 pu...
Mar 31, 2024•2 hr 50 min•Season 2Ep. 44
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...
Feb 29, 2024•2 hr 29 min
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 e...
Feb 29, 2024•3 hr 41 min•Season 2Ep. 42
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 sti...
Feb 01, 2024•2 hr 53 min•Season 2Ep. 41
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, ...
Jan 31, 2024•2 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 40
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...
Dec 16, 2023•2 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 39
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...
Dec 16, 2023•2 hr 28 min•Season 2Ep. 38
I must admit, when I got around to editing this episode, I genuinely didn't remember much about the opening of this book. It definitely leans into that old problem that these public domain books have, where at the time, the opening would have been quite thrilling, but something's changed in the intervening years, and it takes its sweet time getting your attention. Maybe I'm just jaded by the absolute glut of isekai lately, where the protagonist dies (or nearly does so), only to find themselves i...
Aug 31, 2023•1 hr 53 min•Season 2Ep. 37
