Loose Ends award-nominated novella now on Kindle - and sequels Little Differences and Late Lessons

Happy to announce that my 1997 award-nominated time-travel novella,  "Loose Ends," is now available on Kindle.   As always, you don't need a Kindle to read it - you can download a free-app for your laptop, tablet, or phone, right there at the top of the "Loose Ends" Kindle page.

The novella was actually triple nominated, for what may be considered the triple crown in science fiction awards.  "Loose Ends" was a Hugo nominee, a Nebula nominee, and on the short list of 1997 stories for the Sturgeon Award.

The story introduces Jeff Harris, who goes back in time to stop the Challenger disaster, but finds himself in November 1963, on the eve of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Michael Burstein, reviewing the novella in Tangent, observed that "Paul Levinson has taken the brilliant step of combining the emotional impact of two tragic American events ... But Levinson does much more. He creates a love story set against the evocative portrait of New York City."

*Note added January 11, 2015: Sequel to Loose Ends - "Little Differences" - just published.  
*Note added February 7, 2015: Sequel to Little Differences - "Late Lessons" - just published.




And here's Analog 1999 illo by Randy Asplund for "Late Lessons"

What if the Soviet Union survived into the 21st century?


If you're a devotee of time travel, you might also enjoy my Sierra Waters time travel trilogy, published by JoSara MeDia:




words by Paul Levinson, music and recording by John Anealio



Loose Ends cracks Amazon's Top 100 for Time Travel

Magic City: Yiddish, Cuba, Bathing Suit Excellent

I caught up with the first season of Magic City and the first episode of the second season in the past few days, and was impressed indeed.  It takes place a tad before the start of Mad Men - in late 1958 into 1959 - but it has almost nothing else in common with Mad Men.   Instead of high-rolling Madison Avenue advertising, we get beach-front Miami Beach, where the main high-rolling depicted is among gamblers, mobsters, and hotel owner Ike Evans.   The mob - in the person of Ben Diamond - contributes murders - and the women, from prostitutes to girl friends and wives, are sassily bright and beautiful.   There's plenty of nudity of all kinds, making Magic City much more like Rome than Mad Men.

The plot is pretty good, too, with some genuinely climatic and touching moments, and a few over-the-top situations and resolutions, which are ok by me.   Ike - well played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan - is struggling to keep his hotel successful and even afloat.   He seeks the help of Diamond, ends up with a murder of union head on his hands, who also happens to be an old friend.   To make matters even more tense, Ike's son Stevie is sleeping with Diamond's wife, and Ike's other son Danny wants to work in the DA's office - the very DA who is out to get Ike and Diamond at any cost.

A lot of the first season was devoted to Stevie keeping polaroids of him and Diamond's wife out of Diamond's hands.   When Diamond finally does get a look at them, however, he kills neither his wife or Stevie, because he rather watch them making love.   Not completely believable, but I guess there are crazed mobsters like Diamond around somewhere, so why not in Miami Beach.

The show has a Yiddishe tahm - look it up if you don't know the language - which makes it especially welcome and appealing.   More than just a Yiddish word is thrown in every now and again.  Magic City is thoroughly steeped in Jewish customs and attitudes.  And among the characters who are Jewish are not only Ike and his kids (though not his second wife, who is Cuban), but Ben Diamond (far more brutal than Meyer Lansky), the late union leader, and even the obsessed DA.   And Cuba indeed plays a significant role in this story.  As does JFK, not yet seen, but on his way to becoming President.

In short, Magic City is zesty, refreshing, pounding, and sexy - I'll be an avid viewer from now.   And my wife really likes it, too.


  

#SFWApro

Mad Men 6.8: Dr. Feelgood and Grandma Ida

There's always at least one insane show on Mad Men, sometimes two, in which all hell breaks loose to the point where you and the characters don't know who's dreaming what, or if it's really a dream at all.  This is one of Matthew Weiner's signatures, and you'll recall it was used to excellent effect on The Sopranos in the aftermath of Tony being shot by Uncle Junior.   At its best on Mad Men, it had Don going out to California a few years ago in his original identity as Dick Whitman.

Tonight's Mad Men 6.8 was such a show.  The trigger is a Dr. Feelgood kind of doctor - the name the doc who gave JFK a stimulus shot on regular basis was known by - who in Mad Men dispenses a combination of B vitamins and a little something extra (no doubt amphetamine) to most of the major characters including Don.

Don is down because of his loss of Sylvia last week and a cough (which I hope is not the first sign of lung cancer) and is in dire need of a pick-me-up.   The doc gives him a shot in the buttock (as the doc says), and in a few seconds we get a brilliant piece of acting from Jon Hamm.   The gist is he thinks he's come up with a fabulous campaign for picky Chevy, but it turns out most of it doesn't translate to the un-high world.   We also get some fine dancin' from Aaron Staton as Ken Cosgrove, with a cane and all.

Meanwhile, back home, the kids are staying over Don's apartment and Megan has to leave to meet some Broadway producers, and out of nowhere Grandma Ida is inside the apartment and talking it up with the kids.  Never heard of her?  Neither have the kids, and, to make matters even more surreal and funny, she's African American.   Sally and Bobby were at their deadpan funniest, and I was laughing out loud at this scene (and also because there really was a Grandma Ida in our family).   The upshot, however, is Don left the back door open, and Ida was casing the building looking for some suitable places to burgle.

Don collapses when he comes home to find this, but from the shot in the buttock to the faint we get a fast moving collage of zany scenes interspersed with the young Don losing his virginity. Amidst this craziness in the office only Peggy, as usual, is the voice of sanity, but she does get her backside complimented by the copywriter with the beard and says thanks so the episode was not a total loss for her and definitely far from it for us and in fact it was a cracked hoot.

See ya next week.

See also Mad Men 6.1-2: The Lighter and the Twist ... Mad Men 6.3: Good Company ... Mad Men 6.4: McLuhan, Heinz, and Don's Imagination ... Mad Men 6.5: MLK ... Mad Men 6.6: Good News Comes in a Chevy ...  Mad Men 6.7: Merger and Margarine

See also Why "You Only Live Twice" for Mad Men Season 5 Finale ... Mad Men Season Five Finale

See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party  ... Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side ... Mad Men 5.4: Volunteer, Dream, Trust ... Mad Men 5.5: Ben Hargrove ... Mad Men 5.6: LSD Orange ... Mad Men 5.7: People of High Degree ... Mad Men 5.8: Mad Man and Gilmore Girl ...Mad Men 5.9: Don's Creativity  ... Mad Men 5.10: "The Negron Complex" ... Mad Men 5.11: Prostitution and Power ... Mad Men 5.12: Exit Lane

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ...4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ...Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ...Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

  

download Mad Men season 6 on

Mad Men 6.5: MLK

One of the best things about Mad Men is how it shows our characters reacting to publicly catastrophic events, such as the assassination of JFK.   Tonight  in Mad Men 6.5 we get the same for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.

We get some surprises.  Pete turns out to be more ethical than Harry, shouting at Harry when he complains about the continuing preemption of regular television programming in the aftermath of the assassination, and the impact that's having on advertising.  Of course, part of Pete's moral outrage might be fueled by the pain and guilt he feels from fracturing his own family, but even so it was powerful and satisfying to see.

Dawn, chastised by Joan a few weeks ago for the stupid petty business of checking out Harry's secretary's time card - that is, it was stupid and petty for Joan to chastise Dawn for this - rebuffs Joan's offer of sympathy tonight about MLK.  I like Joan, but she got just what she deserved.

Most significant, as always, is the response of Don and his family.

First, we get an outstanding scene of Don and son Bobby in the movie theater seeing Planet of the Apes.   This is Don's way of honoring Betty's punishment of no television for Bobby because he was peeling a bit of the wallpaper off in his room.  Good for Don - Betty continues to be the worst mother in the world.   And it's good to see Don looking at theater as a good place to take his son on a day like this, even if, maybe especially if, the movie is the indictment of humanity in Planet of the Apes.

Later, at home with Megan, Don confesses that he didn't love his children at first, a reflection of the lack of love he felt from and for his own poor excuse of a father.  But he clearly loves them now, as the scene in the movie theater with Bobby shows.   Megan is moved by this, and is about as loving to Don as we've seen in a while.

But my favorite scene and line comes in the scene after, as Don goes into Bobby's room to see why he's still awake.   Bobby is worried that Henry, who has had a career in politics, could be shot.   That's exactly what a boy his age might think.  But Don reassures him, explaining that Henry is not important enough for anyone to take a shot at.

It's at once a funny and sobering truth.  Years ago, I recall a piece in the Village Voice or another New York newspaper or magazine by Ron Rosenbaum, lamenting the fact that he had been assigned New York Mayor Abe Beame as a beat.  (Beame succeeded John Lindsay - Henry's current boss - as mayor.)  Beame was the most boring candidate and mayor ever in office, Rosenbaum wrote.  He doesn't make news.  Nothing he says is exciting or even interesting.  You can't even rely on anyone wanting to take a shot at him.

Like what Don said about Henry - a truth, at once sobering and horrifying, because of what it says about our living in such a world, but also very funny.  In its own way, a microcosm of Mad Men.

See also Mad Men 6.1-2: The Lighter and the Twist ... Mad Men 6.3: Good Company ... Mad Men 6.4: McLuhan, Heinz, and Don's Imagination

See also Why "You Only Live Twice" for Mad Men Season 5 Finale ... Mad Men Season Five Finale

See also Mad Men Season 5 Debut: It's Don's Party  ... Mad Men 5.3: Heinz Is On My Side ... Mad Men 5.4: Volunteer, Dream, Trust ... Mad Men 5.5: Ben Hargrove ... Mad Men 5.6: LSD Orange ... Mad Men 5.7: People of High Degree ... Mad Men 5.8: Mad Man and Gilmore Girl ...Mad Men 5.9: Don's Creativity  ... Mad Men 5.10: "The Negron Complex" ... Mad Men 5.11: Prostitution and Power ... Mad Men 5.12: Exit Lane

And from Season 4: Mad Men 4.1: Chicken Kiev, Lethal Interview, Ham Fight ... 4.2: "Good Time, Bad Time?" "Yes." ... 4.3: Both Coasts ... 4.4: "The following program contains brief nudity ..." 4.5: Fake Out and Neurosis ... 4.6: Emmys, Clio, Blackout, Flashback  ... 4.7: 'No Credits on Commercials' ... 4.8: A Tale of Two Women ... 4.9: "Business of Sadists and Masochists" ...4.10: Grim Tidings ... 4.11: "Look at that Punim" ... 4.12: No Smoking!  ... Mad Men Season 4 Finale: Don and -

And from Season 3: Mad Men Back for 3 and 3.2: Carvel, Penn Station, and Diet Soda and 3.3: Gibbon, Blackface, and Eliot and 3.4: Caned Seats and a Multiple Choice about Sal's Patio Furniture and 3.5: Admiral TV, MLK, and a Baby Boy and 3.6: A Saving John Deere and 3.7: Brutal Edges ... August Flights in 3.8 ... Unlucky Strikes and To the Moon Don in 3.9 ... 3.10: The Faintest Ink, The Strongest Television ... Don's Day of Reckoning in Mad Men 3.11 ... Mad Men 3.12: The End of the World in Mad Men ... Mad Men Season 3 Finale: The End of the World

And from Season Two: Mad Men Returns with a Xerox and a Call Girl ... 2.2: The Advertising Devil and the Deep Blue Sea ... 2.3 Double-Barreled Power ... 2.4: Betty and Don's Son ... 2.5: Best Montage Since Hitchcock ... 2.6: Jackie, Marilyn, and Liberty Valance ... 2.7: Double Dons... 2.8: Did Don Get What He Deserved? ... 2.9: Don and Roger ... 2.10: Between Ray Bradbury and Telstar ... 2.11: Welcome to the Hotel California ... 2.12 The Day the Earth Stood Still on Mad Men ... 2.13 Saving the Best for Last on Mad Men

And from Season One: Mad Men Debuts on AMC: Cigarette Companies and Nixon ... Mad Men 2: Smoke and Television ... Mad Men 3: Hot 1960 Kiss ... Mad Men 4 and 5: Double Mad Men ...Mad Men 6: The Medium is the Message! ... Mad Men 7: Revenge of the Mollusk ... Mad Men 8: Weed, Twist, Hobo ... Mad Man 9: Betty Grace Kelly ... Mad men 10: Life, Death, and Politics ...Mad Men 11: Heat! ... Mad Men 12: Admirable Don ... Mad 13: Double-Endings, Lascaux, and Holes

            

download Mad Men season 6 on

Fringe 3.8: The Long Voyages Home

Whew,  Fringe 3.8 came through with all the goods tonight, in a superb episode that fired on all cylinders and was just brimming with great touches, large and small.

Great alternate universe strokes.  My favorite were Springsteen Station for our Penn Station, Newark - hey, we ought to change the name of ours to theirs - and, along with the music, a version of late Roy Orbison's "You Got It," sung by either a different Big O, or a different singer with a Big O-like voice.  Evocative to hear in either case.   There was also a picture of aged JFK on Walternate's desk - gives me chills every time I see it.

Last week, our Olivia got a message to Peter in our universe, in bed with their Olivia (but thinking she was ours) - "I'm trapped on the other side."  Peter acts on that message tonight, tracking their Olivia - who quickly realizes Peter is on to her - and she tries to make it back home, too.   Peter thinks she can help in getting our Olivia home.

But our Olivia, still trapped on the other side, and now on the verge of being sliced and diced for their science, cannot get back home without the help of someone on the other side.  That would be alt-Broyles, who in the most emotional moments of the show, decides to help Olivia (he's primed to do that Olivia' helping his son, last week).

It turns out, in the end, that only one Broyles will survive, and I'll miss alt-Broyles - he was a more appealing character than our Broyles in some ways.

But a scene takes place in the Bronx - yay! - in an old typewriter shop which the "quantum entangled telegraph" (as Walter calls it), that is, a typewriter that types between universe, and you can't get much better than that in cool retro-science fiction, too!

And here's a little taste of Roy Orbison's You Got It ...

See also Fringe 3.1: The Other Olivia ... Fringe 3.2: Bad Olivia and Peter ... Fringe 3.3: Our/Their Olivia on the Other Side ... Fringe 3.5: Back from Hiatus, Back from the Amber ... Fringe 3.7: Two Universes Still Nearing Collision

See also reviews of Season 2: Top Notch Return of Fringe Second Season ... Fringe 2.2 and The Mole People ... Fringe 2.3 and the Human Body as Bomb ... Fringe 2.4 Unfolds and Takes Wing ... Fringe 2.5: Peter in Alternate Reality and Wi-Fi for the Mind ... A Different Stripe of Fringe in 2.6 ... The Kid Who Changed Minds in Fringe 2.7 ... Fringe 2.8: The Eternal Bald Observers ... Fringe 2.9: Walter's Journey ... Fringe 2.10: Walter's Brain, Harry Potter, and Flowers for Algernon ...  New Fringe on Monday Night: In Alternate Universe? ... Fringe 2.12: Classic Science Fiction Chiante ... Fringe 2.13: "I Can't Let Peter Die Again" ... Fringe 2.14: Walter's Health, Books, and Father ... Fringe 2.15: I'll Take 'Manhatan' ... Fringe 2.16: Peter's Story ... Fringe 2.17: Will Olivia Tell Peter? ... Fringe 2.18: Strangeness on a Train ... Fringe 2.19: Two Plus Infinity ... Fringe the Noir Musical ... Fringe 2.21: Bring on the Alternates ... Fringe 2.22:  Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming ... Fringe Season 2 Finale: The Switch

See also reviews of Season One Fringe Begins ... Fringe 2 and 3: The Anthology Tightrope ... 4: The Eternal Bald Observer ... 7: A Bullet Can Scramble a Dead Brain's Transmission ... 8. Heroic Walter and Apple Through Steel ... 9. Razor-Tipped Butterflies of the Mind ... 10. Shattered Pieces Come Together Through Space and Times ... 11. A Traitor, a Crimimal, and a Lunatic ... 12, 13, 14: Fringe and Teleportation ... 15: Fringe is Back with Feral Child, Pheromones, and Bald Men ... 17. Fringe in New York, with Oliva as Her Suspect ... 18. Heroes and Villains across Fringe ... Stephen King, Arthur C. Clarke, and Star Trek in Penultimate Fringe ... Fringe Alternate Reality Finale: Science Fiction At Its Best

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The Plot to Save Socrates


"challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly

"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News

"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book