Paper Cuts

New month, new episode, new book! A real thrilling tale this time around folks, we're diving into The Extra Day, by Algernon Blackwood, and I gotta tell ya, this has to have been one of my favorites that I've read on the show so far. There's a real, palpable sense of naturalistic wonder that suffuses every line here, and that calls my mind back to a childhood favorite, The Secret Garden. I do hope...

This is what I get for not setting up these episodes in advance, now I've got limes to juggle outside the podcast, I promise I'm not on fire and the cats are fine, but I don't have a lot of bandwidth for good show notes. I'll come back and update this probably? There's fun pulpy radio stuff going on in this one, I think it's the bit with the parasites? No more details to spoil in case I'm wrong. I...

I will not lie to y'all, the transmission may have broken in my RV, and I need to focus on handling that since I live in there full time. I promise this is a fun episode where we do fun radio things on Venus. There's like,, giant ants, smelting, platinum, me talking about vaccum pressure, it's real neat. Trust me on this one!  You can find the text (to read along with) here: https://www.gutenberg....

Night falls on our fair Venusian hero, while he continues to emotionally (and, occasionally physically) manipulate the poor natives of this planet, scarcely out of the age of wooden tools, into helping him produce technology that will change the course of history on this very continent, and quite aggressively so. However, despite his many various "magics" available to him, he's not invulnerable, a...

Finally having finished off 20,000 leagues, we're up next with a small pile of short stories! Admittedly, had I known these stories were this short, I would have just picked up The Radio Planet directly to read instead of reading these short stories, and saved them for times when we run out of book, but have more episode in store for us. That being said, I had a lot of fun with these stories! Love...

Our wonderful adventure (punctuated by Verne's lovely little nautical infodumps) draws to a close in this somewhat shortened episode, but the way things conclude will have you white-knuckling your podcatcher even despite that. Just what becomes of our captain, and, more importantly, our dear narrator, hm? Even this little time under the sea could begin to wear on the unprepared mind, after all! Yo...

The captain has piloted us into the seeming dead end of the Red Sea, but worry not, our dear Nemo has a clever plan to get his wonderful submarining machine out of this particular scrape. The how and why may be obvious to you if you've indulged in any of the adaptations of this tale, but it'll still be a thrilling tale nonetheless! Come along with us as we narrate the exciting journey back to some...

Despite Captain Nemo's predilictions about not wanting to see the land, our intrepid adventurers are already craving the freedom that living somewhere other than a submersible can provide, no matter how grand a submersible like the Nautilus can be. There's no shortage of intrigue and derring-do this week, so let's tune in and find out just how things are going to go, shall we? You can find the tex...

For our first new book post-The Last Man, I decided to go with a childhood favorite of mine, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea! Listen, I'll freely admit that Jules Verne was pointed out to me by Back to the Future, but I really do love his works, especially if the translation is solid. Other than the obvious of Journey to the Center of the Earth, anyone have any particular favorites from Verne? You ca...

Fleeing England really is the desperate idea that it sounds like here, although considering the way the plague has been treating the characters, it's not exactly a shock! We spend some time in France, experiencing the effects of the world being in panic, before taking to the sea. What sort of results will that bring to our intrepid main characters? Well, just like usual, the easiest answer there i...

We open this episode with almost half of England devastated by this plague, and this lovely October scene marks one step closer to the end of this trailblazing dystopian novel. It really hits the gas as we get closer to the close, as Shelley is well known to do. If I'm honest, even though I really enjoyed this story (especially once it got going), I was a little unnerved by the plague coming in fo...

Just two episodes this month, folks, I really decided to lean in on making these episodes longer, and that put me over the size limit just barely on the third one.  Like the title says, our intrepid protags have fled mama Britain's happy embrace, and are now  flexing Shelley's ability to write about serene mountaintop nature finding their way down south to at least ride out the last dregs of the p...

First off, I gotta say: Content warning for the rest of The Last Man, we're dealing with a plague story now!  Ok, now that that's outta the way, how have y'all been? It's a new year, let's hope it's gonna go better than the last two have! Honestly, even despite the sudden turn to plague in this story, I love the way it's going, and just like Shelley's other work, Frankenstein, it REALLY picks up s...

Bit of a longer episode this time, I'm going to try to really stretch these things out as long as I can so we actually make progress through the books! Heck, we're only a third of the way through the book by the end of this episode, but the good news is, since this is Mary Shelley, that means it's about to pick up in a MAJOR way, and that's not even mentioning the steam we've been building to get...

This episode, we dive a little further into The Last Man, which is getting increasingly affectionate between our main character and Adrian. Listen, I know that nothing's going to come of it, but that tension, especially for a modern reader, really builds between the two, huh? Who knows, this book doesn't get talked about, maybe I'm just out and out wrong about my guesses and it DOES do what a mode...

Welcome to Season 2 of Paper Cuts, everyone! We open this brand new set of episodes with a brand new book, The Last Man by Mary Shelley, of Frankenstein fame! I'm really happy to be back recording episodes, it's been a long time. We are _finally_ actually getting to be live on Fridays once more, so feel free to drop by on Twitch, it'll be 5:30 Pacific time every week! Also, I ditched actually usin...

For this last episode of the first "season" of Paper Cuts, I took a bit of a different approach. For a little context, while this is streamed live on twitch, I stream under the category Reading Simulator, as well, I'm reading aloud, and the more appropriate podcasts/talk shows tag is a bit busy. Well, turns out, Reading Simulator isn't just a snarky tag inserted by someone who dislikes Visual Nove...

This time, we dive into a well-known classic, that character that the author WISHES the public would hate, tumblr's favorite darling, the infamous know-it-all that all others are patterned after, that's right! It's sherlock holmes, everyone! I knew I was going to get to this one as soon as the podcast started, it's practically THE well known public domain book that everyone's got some awareness of...

In this thrilling episode of Paper Cuts, we finish up The Secret Garden, this time learning just what the response can be when you mention that hey, I've maybe discovered the secret that's got everyone all tense! If I may be a bit honest in oversharing, I think Colin in particular is part of why this book stuck to me as a kid. I had a lot of medical nonsense occur when I was younger, so having som...

For the last episode this month (And the last episode before we're properly recording live episodes again! AAA!!!) we get a little further into the Secret Garden, learning more about just what wonders the earth can hold, let alone just how much wonder and whimsy can crop up when you least expect it to get ahold of you. I was genuinely tempted to dig up my childhood copy of this for the recording o...

This episode, we start in on a childhood favorite of mine! The Secret Garden is really a wonderful tale for kids to pick up as early reading practice, and I do hope that by bringing it up here, that the tradition continues on of kids reading it and finding that little bit of whimsy in their day to day life. Y'know, between this and Narnia, I must have had quite the penchant for stories where a you...

We dive into the finale of this well-remembered tale this episode, finally learning what lies beyond the pale, even though it makes our main characters quail, their fright assailing them like the stormwind hassles a sail. Additionally, this episode marks the remaining backlog shrinking to a mere five, so soon you all will once more be able to hear my voice live, rather than the echoes of the past...

Finally, we're spooky at the right time! This episode dives further into that old standby from a man who's got a VERY unfortunately named cat (Seriously, it's just a REAL bad choice) but still spins us a remarkable tale of the world beyond our understanding, and how it can leave its grubby little fingerprints (or perhaps sucker-circles, depending on who you ask) all over this place we all call hom...

Listen, I know it's about a month early right now, but at the time I recorded this episode, it was PRIME SPOOKY SEASON! And hey, I'm not crazily, wildly early, so it's not the end of the world. In addition to the obviously horrifying story I'm referencing in the title, we also explore an oddity of what was then, the modern age. Honestly, it wouldn't shock me if someone rigged up something a little...

After polishing up the last bit of the Colors of Space, we dive into another short-ish story with a shockingly familiar title: The Sound of Silence, by Barbara Constant. And golly, what a SHOCK, someone going to a psychiatrist? Taking care of their brain? Why, isn't that just wild! Just what could Lucky Lucilla be thinking, if only we had a way to see into her mind, hm? Once we find out what's goi...