New York Times Article about Neanderthals

Great New York Times article about Neanderthals, which confirms a lot of what about them in my 1999 debut novel The Silk Code.

 

Raised by Wolves Season One Finale: The Serpent

A powerful, even stunning, season one finale for Raised by Wolves on HBO Max last night.

[spoilers follow]

The big reveal is that Mother and I and everyone was wrong about how her baby came to be, and what it in fact was.  The virtual sex she had with her creator apparently didn't inseminate her via triggering some kind of organic material she already had insider her.  Whatever it was that got her pregnant presumably came from this extraterrestrial Kepler world.   I say "apparently" and "presumably" because I suppose it's still possible that this hellish serpent she delivered was indeed something that her creator embedded in her back on Earth, and this "baby" is indeed the future of humanity.  But at this point it looks as if that entire virtual, remembered conversation and activity with her builder was just a piece of masterful misdirection.

Other than all of that, which was game-changing, the season finale had a variety of good touches, ranging from Father's jealousy to whatever was going on with Paul.   Again, presumably, I'd say that the voices he heard in his head came not from Sol (of course not) but that ship that we saw hovering in the atmosphere. No doubt that ship will have a major role in the second season (and great that Raised by Wolves has already been renewed.

Another provocative element is the devolution of the beings on Kepler-22B.  I've been thinking ever since we first saw one of those beings early on that there was a human-like quality to its head.  A Neanderthal skull was also revealed in the finale -- works for me, Neanderthals were the centerpiece of my first novel, The Silk Code -- and that skull also raises the possibility that there was a connection between Kepler-22 and Earth in the distant past, if parallel evolution isn't the explanation for Neanderthals appearing on these two worlds, so very distant from each other.

Lots of fascinating issues left hanging.  Good set-up for the second season!

See also Raised by Wolves 1.1: Fast Action and Deep Philosophy  ... Raised by Wolves 1.2-3: More than Meets the Eye ... Raised by Wolves 1.4-5: Halfway to Dune ...Raised by Wolves 1.6-7: The Look on Mother's Face ... Raised by Wolves 1.8-1.9: Frankenstein and Motherhood

 

DNA Nation (Part 1, Chapters 1-5): Reconfiguring Your Human Family

I enjoy binge-watching television series.  I think it's a real break-through in our popular culture.  I occasionally run into myopic critics of technology in academia, who see bingeing as somehow a debasement of our culture.  I always reply that binge-watching a television series brings to the audio-visual screen the same options we have with the venerable medium of the book, which we can read as fast or slowly as we like.  And every once in while, I come across a book which indeed demands to be savored, not binge-read. DNA Nation: How the Internet of Genes Is Changing Your Life by Sergio Pistoi is such a book.  Accordingly, having read the first part (chapters 1-5) today, I'm going to post this review.  And I'll be back, likely more than once, with one or more reviews when I've read the succeeding four parts, like in the next few days  (See my reviews of Dreaming the Beatles and The Perversity of Things for two other sequential, much longer, book reviews.)

Pistoi is a molecular biologist, with a philosopher's understanding of human nature and a media theorist's instinct for understanding the evolution and impact of social media.  He brings these talents to be bear in a package at turns both sagely and delightfully written, a handbook as much as a book, explaining how the scientific revolution of analyzing our DNA - which can be done for $100 or less, by sending a sample of your saliva - is pulling the rug out from under many of our preconceptions, ranging from where in the world our ancestors came from to who really are our closest and not-so-close relatives?  Along the way, DNA Nation eradicates whatever shred of scientific support the 21st racist may cling to, pointing out that DNA mapping shows more differences within racial groups than between them: "you may be more similar genetically to someone you identify as belonging to a different 'race' than your neighbor who looks very much like you" (p. 44).

And Pistoi leavens such weighty lessons with continuous wit and humor. “A genetic profile is not just a biological test," he advises, "it’s a selfie taken from inside our cells” (p. 50).  And, "I could couch-surf for decades around the world visiting all my cousins. And if only half of them invited me to family celebrations, I could spend an entire, terrifying life attending marriages, baptisms, first communions, Thanksgiving days and graduations" (p. 18).

Sex, always a good thing to write about, of course figures prominently in this book.   Indeed, it's the reason all of us humans are so genetically alike.  And it may even extend across species, or does extend across disparate groups of our own species.  Did our ancestors actually sleep with Neanderthals?  Our current DNA proves it, Pistoi notes, and helpfully adds, "If you have seen a diorama of a Neanderthal you may doubt it, but DNA doesn’t lie, and humans have never been too choosy with sex anyway” (p. 36).

But the thrust of the first part of this essential book is not the several percentages of Neanderthal DNA that some of us carry, but the way knowledge of our genetic profile, combined with the ubiquity of the Internet, has created a new world in which everything from family and friends to ethnic identities are starting to radically change.   I'll be back soon with more reviews of this book as I read further about this upheaval in preconceptions in daily progress.

See also DNA Nation (Part 2, Chapters 6-13) The Extraordinary Revolution and Its Intrinsic Limitations ...  DNA Nation (Part 3, Chapters 14-17): Two-Edged Swords ... DNA Nation (Part 4, Chapters 18-24, Epilogue): Talkative Cookies

                   "DNA was the ultimate dossier"

Review of Tobias Cabral's Night Music: A Dose of Hard SF, and Wash It Down with Rock 'n' Roll

Well, it's not quite rock 'n' roll, but there's definitely crucial music in Tobias Cabral's short 2009 novel (136 pages) Night Music, which is all about what happens at Zubrin Base on Mars.

And there's lots of science.  Although the genre is called science fiction, there's usually precious little hard science in the fiction we read under that moniker.  I've often said that Asimov's Foundation trilogy, for example, which I consider the greatest science fiction ever written, is really more philosophy-of-science fiction than science fiction.  Hal Clement's work, to stay with the golden age, is a rarity in that hard science actually plays a pivotal role in the stories he tells.

Cabral does this as well in Night Music.  It's not that hard science is a determining factor in this narrative.  It's that what happens on Zubrin Base, and the expedition to go out there to investigate, is told by science at every step, and accompanied by scientific details and explanations at every turn.

I don't want to say too much about the determinative role of the music, lest I give away the plot.  But I will say that, back here on Earth, I've been captivated by the hypothesis that we humans could sing before we could speak.  That's why, for example, I had my Neanderthals communicating via music in The Silk Code.   In Night Music, the acoustic is more akin to the music of the spheres.  But the novel is also about beginnings, the commencement of human interaction with another intelligent life-form.

It's praise, in my book, to say that Night Music could have been written, in terms of its style and structure, in the 1950s, even though its content is much more current.  If you have a taste for this kind of story-telling, pick up a little Night Music, an at-once profound and refreshing treat.

 

12 Monkeys 2.6: "'Tis Death Is Dead"

A more complex than usual episode of 12 Monkeys tonight - 2.6 - which is saying a lot, seeing as how 12 Monkeys has one of most complex inter<->looping narratives going on television, as befits a high-intellect, high-octane story about time travel.

Jennifer, as she often does, has the best line, when she explains why what the Witness told Cassie, that ending time is good because it ends death, is wrong.  Death is what makes us human, Jennifer says.   Of course, all living organisms die, so death is more appropriately what makes us and all living things alive.  But a big part of what does make us human is an awareness of death, a cultural taking stock of it.   Anthropologists are pretty sure that even Neanderthals had this, in contrast to our nearest living cousins, chimps and gorillas, which do not.

Monkeys certainly don't, which may provide another clue as to why this series is named 12 Monkeys - a clue, that is, other than its increasingly tenuous connection to the movie.   But that's ok, even good, because, as I've said before, there's a lot more room for a bigger story in a TV series than in a movie.

Back to the Witness, he's apparently a shape-shifter, able to assume the appearances of others, or inhabit their bodies, and it looks as if Cassie may be his host, if her jet-black all-iris eyes at the end are any indication. The question will be whether she can be freed of this, and come away with some crucial knowledge of the Witness, or - well, the possibility that she can never free herself of whatever the Witness is is too awful to contemplate (it sorta takes a doubling verb to get this point across).

Temporally local cops continue to play an enjoyable role in these stories. Tonight we meet Detective D'Amato back in the 1970s, which we're introduced to when Cole and Ramse first go back there with Foghat's  Slow Ride - nice touch, since time travel seems instant but it's the ultimate slow ride in terms of eternity not moving, and intrinsically always foggy, too.   If you want to learn more about this family of detectives, just check out The Silk Code, which also has a Neanderthal and a serial killer.

See also 12 Monkeys 2.1: Whatever Will Be, Will Be ... 12 Monkeys 2.2: The Serum ... 12 Monkeys 2.3: Primaries and Paradoxes ... 12 Monkeys 2.4: Saving Time ... 12 Monkeys 2.5: Jennifer's Story

And see also this Italian review, w/reference to Hawking and my story, "The Chronology Protection Case"

And see also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math" ... 12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter ... 12 Monkeys 1.6: Can I Get a Witness? ... 12 Monkeys 1.7: Snowden, the Virus, and the Irresistible ... 12 Monkeys 1.8: Intelligent Vaccine vs. Time Travel ... 12 Monkeys 1.9: Shelley, Keats, and Time Travel ... 12 Monkey 1.10: The Last Jump ... 12 Monkeys 1.11: What-Ifs ... 12 Monkeys 1.2: The Plunge ... 12 Monkeys Season 1 Finale: "Time Travel to Create Time Travel"

podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys

#SFWApro

Double Bones 8.10-11

A real treat for Bones devotees tonight - two episodes, 8.10 and 8.11, back to back.

The second episode - 8.11 - was one of the best episodes of the series as far as science verging on science fiction, so let's start with that.   A murdered archeologist leads the team to killings some 25,000 ago, and those victims turn out to be a Neanderthal / Cro Magnon couple, with a three-year old daughter.  Bone says this is the first hybrid child - which is not quite the case, because who knows how many earlier hybrid Neanderthal Cro Magnons there were, which we just do not know about - but it's the first hybrid discovered and an incredible discovery.

Science break:  Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years, until about 25,000 years ago.  Cro-Magnons, which is what we are, appeared about 40, 000 years ago.  No hard physical evidence of their interaction, let alone interbreeding, has been discovered to date, but it's a safe or at least reasonable bet that they did, because they inhabited the same areas and there is some genetic overlap.   The possibilities have long intrigued scientists and science fiction writers, including me (see The Silk Code).

Back to prehistoric Bones: the astonishing discovery provides a great occasion for Bones coming to terms with her super-competitiveness.  She allows Clark to get the credit and lead the team in its explication of what happened to that Neanderthal / Cro Magnon family all those years ago.  It's a story of racial hatred, ever plaguing our species, but also of love transcending through the ages.  Sadly beautiful, really.

Meanwhile, Bones solves the crime in the present with Booth's help - as they also do in episode 8.10, which could be called them dancin' Bones.  Yes, Bones and Booth do a nice waltz, and figure out who killed the pretty ballerina.

But the real story here - in 8.10 - is Angela, who wants to rekindle her relationship with art, shunted aside for eight years in her work for the detectives of the Jeffersonian.   If science was the hero of 8.11, art was the star in 8.10, in both dance and painting.   The two shows together provide a portrait of what a cultural force Bones is - a series that goes so far beyond the usual detective show as to be its own new genre.  Art and science, Neanderthal and  Cro-Magnon, Booth and Bones ...

But lest we forget its detective moorings, Bones will be back next week with what looks to be a riveting encounter with its criminal nemesis.

See also Bones 8.1: Walk Like an Egyptian ... Bones 8.2 of Contention ... Bones 8.3: Not Rotting Behind a Desk  ... Bones 8.4: Slashing Tiger and Donald Trump ... Bones 8.5: Applesauce on Election Eve ... Bones 8.6: Election Day ... Bones 8.7: Dollops in the Sky with Diamonds ...Bones 8.8: The Talking Remains ... Bones 8.9: I Am A Camera

And see also Bones 7.1: Almost Home Sweet Home ... Bones 7.2: The New Kid and the Fluke ...Bones 7.3: Lance Bond and Prince Charmington ... Bones 7.4: The Tush on the Xerox ... Bones 7.5: Sexy Vehicle ... Bones 7.6: The Reassembler ... Bones 7.7: Baby! ... Bones 7.8: Parents ...Bones 7.9: Tabitha's Salon ... Bones 7.10: Mobile ... Bones 7.11: Truffles and Max ... Bones 7.12: The Corpse is Hanson ... Bones Season 7 Finale: Suspect Bones

And see also Bones 6.1: The Linchpin ... Bones 6.2: Hannah and her Prospects ... Bones 6.3 at the Jersey Shore, Yo, and Plymouth Rock ... Bones 6.4 Sans Hannah ... Bones 6.5: Shot and Pretty ... Bones 6.6: Accidental Relations ... Bones 6.7:  Newman and "Death by Chocolate" ...Bones 6.8: Melted Bones ... Bones 6.9: Adelbert Ames, Jr. ... Bones 6.10: Reflections ... Bones 6.11: The End and the Beginning of a Mystery ... Bones 6.12 Meets Big Love ... Bones 6.13: The Marrying Kind ... Bones 6.14: Bones' Acting Ability ... Bones 6.15: "Lunch for the Palin Family" ...Bones 6.16: Stuck in an Elevator, Stuck in Times ... Bones 6.17: The 8th Pair of Feet ... Bones 6.18: The Wile E. Chupacabra ... Bones 6.19 Test Runs The Finder ... Bones 6.20: This Very Statement is a Lie ... Bones 6.21: Sensitive Bones ... Bones 6.22: Phoenix Love ... Bones Season 6 Finale: Beautiful

And see also Bones: Hilarity and Crime and Bones is Back For Season 5: What Is Love? and 5.2: Anonymous Donors and Pipes and 5.3: Bones in Amish Country and 5.4: Bones Meets Peyton Place and Desperate Housewives and Ancient Bones 5.5 and Bones 5.6: A Chicken in Every Viewer's Pot and Psychological Bones 5.7 and Bones 5.8: Booth's "Pops" and Bones 5.9 Meets Avatar and Videogamers ... Bad Santa, Heart-Warming Bones 5.10 ... Bones 5.11: Of UFOs, Bloggers, and Triangles ... Bones 5.12: A Famous Skeleton and Angela's Baby ... Love with Teeth on Bones 5.13 ... Faith vs. Science vs. Psychology in Bones 5.14 ... Page 187 in Bones 5.15 ...Bones 100: Two Deep Kisses and One Wild Relationship ... Bones 5.17: The Deadly Stars ...Bones Under Water in 5.18 ... Bones 5.19: Ergo Together ...  Bones 5.20: Ergo Together ... Bones 5.21: The Rarity of Happy Endings ... Bones Season 5 Finale: Eye and Evolution



"Combining Neanderthals and mechanical looms, cantaloupes and coded butterflies, Levinson's debut novel...offers a flurry of amazing prehistoric technologies, demonstrating that the mysteries of our past can be just as fruitful as those of our future... Levinson creatively explain gaps in both ancient history and biology... providing more wonders than many a futuristic epic." -- Publishers Weekly

"Author's Cut" Kindle Edition of The Silk Code published by JoSara MeDia

I'm delighted to announce that JoSara MeDia has just published Kindle and ePub editions of my first novel, The Silk Code.

The Silk Code, originally published by Tor Books, won the Locus Award for best first novel of 1999, and reached #8 on the Locus paperback Best Seller list in February 2001. The novel received praise from The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and reviews in dozens of other places.

I'm especially excited about this new edition because it is an “author’s cut” of The Silk Code. The Tor edition, like all books brought out by big publishers, went through extensive copy editing. In this new eBook edition, I reinstated a lot of my original wording, which I always liked better. I see such author’s cuts as a major step forward in publishing. The Silk Code is not only available as a Kindle, but as an eBook on Barnes & Noble and all the digital outlets.

The Silk Code ebook sports a new cover, created especially for the novel by Joel Iskowitz, whose designs have appeared on stamps around the world, US coins, and NASA murals.

I chose JoSara MeDia because I wanted for The Silk Code a savvy, small publisher, unencumbered by baggage from the pre-digital age. JoSara MeDia has published award-winning authors in multiple formats, including print, eBook, and enhanced eBooks in the form of iPad and Android applications. JoSara MeDia also works with non-profit organizations, such as the Texas State Historical Association, assisting them with strategies and solutions to get their content available in these multiple formats.



FREE SAMPLE of The Silk Code

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Read more of The Silk Code -  Kindle US ... Kindle UK  ... Kindle France ... Kindle Spain ... Kindle Italy ... Kindle Germany ... Kindle Japan ... Kindle India ... Nook US ... Nook UK ... Kobo

What the critics said:

"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

"As twisted as a double helix. " -- Wired

"D'Amato is an appealingly savvy character, and Levinson brings a great deal of invention to the endeavor." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"It is hard to put down, easy to pick up again, and an interesting read. " -- San Diego Union-Tribune

"Mixes up-to-the-minute biotechnology with ancient myth, science fiction with police procedure, and prehistory with the near future. It's an impressive debut." -- Joe Haldeman

"Forensic detective Phil D'Amato is one of my favorite characters, and the puzzles he solves are always imaginative, ingenious, and addictive, but Paul Levinson really outdoes himself this time in a mystery involving murders, moths, mummies, the Silk Road, poisons, fireflies, and forensics, all woven into a mystery only D'Amato could solve! A marvelous book!" -- Connie Willis

"This damn book has everything: interesting science, suspense, characters that live on the page - and that we like! -- and it debuts a new series hero, Dr. Phil D'Amato, forensic detective. I couldn't put The Silk Code down. I'll wager you won't be able to either. Oh, and this is the kicker: The Silk Code is Paul Levinson's first novel. " -- Jack Dann

"At last we get Paul Levinson's superb forensic sleuth, Phil D'Amato, in a full-length novel. If you know Phil from his previous appearances, I need say no more. If you don't, kick back and enjoy a mystery that spans the ages." --Jack McDevitt

"The Silk Code is an intriguing story refreshingly rich not only in action but in ideas. Seldom have I seen a story so engagingly weave together so many seemingly disparate (dare I say it?) threads." --Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog

"Paul Levinson is an exceptional new writer, behind whose work stands an impressive body of knowledge and a great deal of human understanding. His first novel signals a writer to watch for the provocation and pleasure that he will bring to thoughtful readers. The Silk Code is smoothly written, evocative, and spicy! Highly recommended." -- George Zebrowski

"The Silk Code is a splendidly imaginative novel that explores worlds of ideas both scientific and philosophical, while carrying the reader effortlessly across countries, times, and cultures." -- Charles Sheffield

"The Silk Code is science fiction in the classic style, with an innovative mystery that breaks new ground. Acclaimed for his short fiction and insightful writing on the computer age, Paul Levinson now brings his many talents to a complex novel that will keep you guessing until the last page. " -- Catherine Asaro

"... sheer conceptual verve" -- Robert K. J. Killheffer, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

"...cerebral but gripping" -- Booklist

"Combining Neanderthals and mechanical looms, cantaloupes and coded butterflies, Levinson's debut novel...offers a flurry of amazing prehistoric technologies, demonstrating that the mysteries of our past can be just as fruitful as those of our future... Levinson creatively explains gaps in both ancient history and biology... providing more wonders than many a futuristic epic." -- Publishers Weekly

"...well-informed and imaginative" -- Kirkus Reviews

"...spins an ingenious web of genetic manipulation and anthropological evidence" --Library Journal

"A rare thriller that actually achieves its goals as a detective tale and a work of boldly speculative sf." -- Gary K. Wolfe, Locus Magazine

"I read this book quite a few years ago but I felt compelled to re-read it because parts of the story have been so firmly wedged in my brain that I needed to experience the entire thing again." -- Cannonball Read

"This is one I don't hesitate to recommend." - Jandy's Reading Room

"Paul Levinson's The Silk Code is inventive. I can't said I'd ever read another SF novel that included Neanderthals, bioengineering and the Amish." - Kristin's Book Log

"I found the genetic manipulation that Levinson describes absolutely fascinating." - Silk Screen Views  "Levinson's first novel - already brilliant." -Jaroslav Bláha

and ... "Daddy, this is the best book I ever read!" -- Molly Vozick-Levinson, 12 years old at the time

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FREE SAMPLE of The Silk Code
The Life and Times of Dr. Phil D'Amato, hero of The Silk Code ...

The Silk Code on The History Channel

The Life and Times of Phil D'Amato
100 members for fans and would-be fans of Dr. Phil D'Amato, the fictional NYPD forensic detective

View this group on Goodreads »

Give Me Sanctuary - on the Sci Fi Channel

Just saw the two-hour premier of the Sci-Fi Channel's new series, Sanctuary, and very much enjoyed it. It began as a series of webisodes which I didn't see last year, so tonight was my first immersion in the series.

The show has a style and storyline all its own, even as it has elements of Heroes (as in, humans or human-like sentient beings with super or strange powers - including a mermaid), New Amsterdam (immortality or at least a major character living relatively young - at least, not old - for a long, long time), and even some of the strange creature feel of H. G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau.

My favorite of these was a Neanderthal with real heart. (I like the idea of Neanderthals surviving into our time, which is why I wrote The Silk Code.)

The story revolves around Dr. Helen Magnus - always good to see Stargate's Amanda Tapping - who recruits Dr. Will Zimmerman (reminiscent of Daniel Jackson from Stargate and the younger Bishop on Fringe) to work with her in the "Sanctuary". This is just what it sounds like, but for the strange sentient beings, including the Neanderthal, that Magnus has been rescuing from all over the world - for at least as far back as the time of Jack the Ripper. Some of them are good, some are bad, some confused. Zimmerman, in fact, was rescued by Magnus when he was a boy, but doesn't realize that until the end of the premier. Also on hand is Helen's daughter Ashley - who looks to be about 20 or late teens, does most of the dangerous collection of specimens, packs a mean punch, and is blond. Think somewhere between Claire and Niki, to get back to Heroes.

But Sanctuary does have an appealing original flavor - zoological and botanical and scientific, where Heroes is comic book, and Fringe is just invitingly weird so far, without any real explanation of why.

Biology was my favorite subject in high school, and in college, too, until I realized I'd get more out of sleeping late on Friday mornings than running down to City College for an 8am lab.

Sanctuary is on at the more civilized time of 10pm on Fridays, and I expect I'll be watching.

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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

more about The Plot to Save Socrates...





Read the first chapter of The Plot to Save Socrates .... FREE!

Neanderthals in Fact and Fiction

Neanderthals have been in the news a lot this year - actually, they're in the news a lot almost every year, as indeed they should. A species of humanity very close to ours, who may be part of us, or may have disappeared from the Earth some 30,000 or so years ago, just as our distinct kind of humanity fully emerged.

Either way, Neanderthals are fascinating. I couldn't resist writing much of my first novel, The Silk Code, about them. And I have feeling they may well walk among us again in another...

A trailer for The Silk Code follows - actually a slice from my interview on The History Channel's Evolution of Science Fiction - along with two recent articles which give an idea of the current state of our knowledge of them...