Latest Gutenberg Podcast Episodes
Guarding Gus
Paper Cuts - May 04, 2024 16:00 - 1 hourWelcome, 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...
The Lost World
Paper Cuts - April 29, 2024 02:12 - 2 hoursAh, 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...
To Choke a Morlock
Paper Cuts - April 29, 2024 01:48 - 3 hoursUnsurprisingly, 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 ...
The Time Machine
Paper Cuts - March 31, 2024 22:00 - 1 hourOnce 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, th...
And So the Wizard Baked a Cake...
Paper Cuts - March 31, 2024 17:00 - 2 hoursFirst 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...
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Paper Cuts - February 29, 2024 22:00 - 2 hoursWe'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 ...
Forgetha? Is that what the planet is called?
Paper Cuts - February 29, 2024 18:00 - 3 hoursWith 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 pu...
An Astounding Volume of Aliens
Paper Cuts - February 01, 2024 01:00 - 2 hoursFrom 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 tel...
Astounding Stories, July 1930
Paper Cuts - January 31, 2024 23:19 - 2 hoursCelebrating 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 l...
Stony Reception from This Crowd!
Paper Cuts - December 16, 2023 04:30 - 2 hoursOur 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...
Literacy is a Gift!
Paper Cuts - December 16, 2023 04:00 - 2 hoursAs 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 ol...
A Crystal Age
Paper Cuts - August 31, 2023 22:46 - 1 hourI 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 ...
The Five Jars
Paper Cuts - August 31, 2023 22:26 - 2 hoursFall is a great time to dive into tales of the supernatural, and what's more supernatural than your local fair folk, hm? Well, don't get me wrong here, fall's just the best time, I can enjoy a wild tale of a man who's on a journey to see and hear things far beyond what he ought to be experiencin...
Martian Rays of Rebellion
Paper Cuts - July 20, 2023 18:30 - 2 hoursWe travel farther into the wild world of the red planet, led on and on and on by our dear protagonist, John Carter, who definitely is NOT a Mary Sue and you SHOULDN'T flame Borroughs on AO3 about it, no way. I goof, but seriously, this is a fantastic example of how a wildly overpowered main char...
A Princess of Mars
Paper Cuts - July 20, 2023 18:00 - 2 hoursOk, Ok, enough short stories for now. Let's dive into a book that was SUPER popular for its time, and one that honestly, I'm shocked had its popularity killed by the botched disney adaptation. I mean, for context, Edgar Rice Borroughs' other major work, Tarzan, is EASILY recognizable and often p...
The Micro Water Eater
Paper Cuts - June 11, 2023 19:47 - 1 hourDefinitely didn't forget to click publish, nuh uh, no way! This batch of stories gets kinda wild in its concepts, very much a creeping horror in its science fiction! Not only do we discover the almost religious terror that can be inspired by the unknown, but we also discover that you REALL...
Fall of the Lost Kazoofalum into the Pit
Paper Cuts - June 11, 2023 19:34 - 3 hoursGuess who forgot to click publish on this? it's me! I did that! This week, we dive into another couple of short stories, this time hitting up two huge Halloween favorites you may have read in English class, Fall of the House of Usher and The Pit and the Pendulum! I'm a known enjoyer of Poe's g...
Ring for the Cask of Sleepy Hollow
Paper Cuts - May 30, 2023 23:27 - 2 hoursAnother batch of short stories in this episode, gang! Some personal favorites of mine this time (I know, I know, I say a lot of the books on here are my favorites, but I genuinely DO love the creeping horror of Amontillado, and Ring Once for Death inverts a trope that I think sorely needs invert...
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Paper Cuts - April 01, 2023 00:50 - 3 hoursWierdly enough, I remember as a kid reading Through the Looking Glass much more often than the original tale. There was always something about the way it went, I just preferred it. Or maybe it was just easier to find in the collection of children's stories my grandma left on my bedside table whe...
Moonset Mindset
Paper Cuts - April 01, 2023 00:37 - 3 hoursThis time, we finish up The First Men in the Moon! Just what happens to our intrepid hero when he lands upon our earthly shores once more, and more importantly, will he save his more scientifically minded comrade? No spoilers, but I think the ending we got was a great way to set end things off! ...
A Gilded Chain Still Binds
Paper Cuts - February 10, 2023 19:00 - 2 hoursThe Cavorite is working its lovely gravity defying magic, and so Idina Menzel isn't the only one soaring to new heights around here! The moon is a most peculiar place, with odd blue lights, odder little mushroom lads that would do NUMBERS on tumblr today, and outright strange folk tending weird ...
The First Men in the Moon
Paper Cuts - February 10, 2023 17:00 - 3 hoursA new book is always a lovely sight around here, and that goes double for starting a new book from a favorite author of mine. H.G. Wells is solidly a member of the english canon for a reason, sure, but he's also just plain and simple a nostalgic author for me to read. Sure, I really only zoned i...
Return of the Cowboy
Paper Cuts - December 10, 2022 18:58 - 2 hoursIn this, our pentultimate dive into Dracula, we find that there's no shortage of good old fashioned american gusto. Yep, our good friend Quincy Morris has returned to the story, and in stereotypical fashion, rather than listening to the expert on the matter of vampiric weaknesses, he just straig...
Dracula Falls
Paper Cuts - December 10, 2022 18:00 - 5 hoursListen, I'm not normally one for the whole style of epilogue that comes up at the end of this book, but I really think it shines here! Not every book earns just how that end changes the context of the original final scene, but given the absolute MESS the gang went through, I think they deserve a...
Distractions DELETED
Paper Cuts - November 10, 2022 21:00 - 1 hourIf you can believe it, this episode was originally at least an hour longer! I put in a lot of leg work on this one, splicing sentences, cutting distractions and side-tangents, and most of all, refining the crackle for the Seward sections of the book. I really like how this one came together, e...
A Vampire? NO, TWO VAMPIRES!
Paper Cuts - November 10, 2022 19:00 - 1 hourWe were all waiting on bated breath for this one, I think. When is the mask on this terror going to come off, how are things going to resolve with Lucy, when's Van Helsing going to show up, the tension was ratcheting rapidly! Just because we've reached a small resolution on those, dear listener...
The Count's Counting Coatman
Paper Cuts - November 10, 2022 17:00 - 2 hoursAs we work our way further into this much-beloved vampire tale, we find that there's a reason an overly-devoted minion of a monster is occasionally called a Renfield! That's right, we're spending more time with everyone's favorite counting-obsessed cuckoo, and boy will you hate what he's up to w...
Dracula
Paper Cuts - October 10, 2022 22:29 - 3 hoursAlright, onto a seasonally appropriate classic, Dracula! This book just kept surprising me, I'll be honest, you really think you know a book from a few modern adaptations but there's so much more to unpack here! This episode really dives deep into the little details of the internet's favorite b...
Time Has Resumed it's Flow!
Paper Cuts - October 10, 2022 18:40 - 2 hoursFinally, that mysterious extra day draws to a close, just as inexplicably as it had started. As for us, however, we're not leaving the extra day unaffected. Perhaps you're like me, and find that you have a greater appreciation for the whimsy in your day to day life, or perhaps the glories of the...
The Birds Know, Do We?
Paper Cuts - September 11, 2022 01:24 - 2 hoursLuckily, since this book is set before 1986, the birds are actual birds and not an elaborate series of surveillance cameras, so they can impart their secrets! And you know what they say? I hear it was something about "Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana", but that's just a ru...
Related Gutenberg Topics