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:

1. Descriptions of "savage natives"
2. Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation (This one is ESPECIALLY present here)
3. 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!

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/

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:

1. Descriptions of "savage natives"
2. Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation (This one is ESPECIALLY present here)
3. 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!

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/

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/