Speak like a Flapper! Words from the 1920’s

FlappersIn researching the next episode of our podcast, we wanted the locals to have the right flavor to their language. The roaring twenties were a period of truly colorful language, and so the people Sage and Savant mean needed to have the appropriate character to set the scene. Prohibition brought in a host of slang words into the English language as people sought ways to talk about their plans without raising interest from the local law enforcement. We pulled some of our favorites from “Flapperspeak: Dictionary of Words from the 1920’s and 1930’s.”
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The Machine Stops

The Machine Stops“The Machine Stops” is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster’s The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two.
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Jules Verne looks into the future with “Paris in the Twentieth Century”

Paris in the Twentieth CenturyMany of Jules Verne’s novels deal with concepts that have become reality. “Paris in the Twentieth Century” is no exception exploring Paris in August 1960, 97 years in Verne’s future, where society places value only on business and technology. The novel follows a young man who struggles unsuccessfully to live in a technologically advanced, but culturally backwards world. Often referred to as Verne’s “lost novel”, the work paints a grim, dystopian view of a technological future civilization.
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