Episodios
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19141 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19141 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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¿Faltan episodios?
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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. I actually have a little garden going out in the backyard (in a series of little pots, with varying success), I've been having an absolute blast embroidering cute little this'n'thats on my clothes to keep them in good repair, I've even been searching for ways to repair the tech I've got around (or, when it needs replacing, getting fixable options!). The solarpunk movement is one made up of what feels like a thousand little decisions, which, I feel, makes it easier to get started. Don't sit there and fuss about what's most optimal, that'll get you all locked up! Start with the choices that seem simple, and remember, it's not a 4-H project, you can enjoy the journey more than the end result!
As for this little chunk of astounding, well... it's good, but it's much better when we read more of it later, y'know?
Want to read the book? Go check it out here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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 trying to not have this description come out as dire, but the happy ending is coming in next week's episode! The return to the city is not exactly a joyous omen. I promise, it's a vital part of the story, and really makes the finale coming up super good!
Want to read the book? Go check it out here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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 to tread, between preaching to the reader, staring down the camera, in comparison to getting your point across in the tone of the story and its dialogue) (That's a major known weak point of my writing, actually) (Well that, and all these asides)
Speaking of asides, I've got things to promote!
Want to read the book? Go check it out here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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 beautiful use of the climate as an antagonistic force in stories like this, too! It really reminds you that the world is a character, alongside the ways the humans have shaped the world. Sure, any good solarpunk story uses the infrastructure as a character, you've got to drive home that we can use technology for the betterment of the world somehow, but when the climate rears its head, like a cow prodded into the defense of the calf, that's a valuable opportunity for the story to REALLY get cooking! (I am once again tempted to get some writing done myself, there's just something about this genre that's inspiring to me beyond what it's normally aiming for, the inspiration of small action to better the world, from the reader)
Want to read the book? Go check it out here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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 I ever do wind up back in the rv, you know I'm FULLY invested in building that out. I mean, I could manage to cram my stuff into the other cabinets to have the space! Sure, I don't exactly have the CRISPR knowhow to build new varieties of plants well-suited to the tightly enclosed environment, but there's plenty of things that would work just fine in that small of a space, you know? I actually wouldn't hate to try to build a sort of trellised system, where the runners from various "main" plants extend upward and diagonally to let the plants have that space to stretch their feet out, you know? Maybe this is worth trying out in the backyard... I better go get planning!
Want to read the book? Go check it out here: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/wheelers/36444581/#edition=64297035&idiq=56656333
Want the book in a nutshell first? Check out Miles Past Xanadu: https://matt-stephens.blogspot.com/2020/07/miles-past-xanadu-complete-for-later.html
Have things to say, books to suggest, or just want to join another discord? Come check out mine!
https://discord.gg/PBZNsjn/
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!
https://www.twitch.tv/Glacier_Nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 [email protected], 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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29768 (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!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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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:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/198424215-guarding-gusHave 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/
Want to catch up in a video format? Check out the youtube channel!
https://www.youtube.com/user/glaciernester -
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 culturesGenerally 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!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/139 (The Lost World)
Have a book to request? Maybe some chats to chit? Finally interested in that bread I bake? drop by the discord!
https://www.discord.gg/PBZNsjn
Want to listen live? Come drop by, Fridays night, on twitch!
https://www.twitch.tv/glacier_nester/
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