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:

1. Descriptions of "savage natives"
2. Various racial slurs, unkind terms, and/or Descriptions of groups that have taken on a worse connotation
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/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/