reviewing Black Doves; Dark Matter; Dept. Q; Detective Hole; Dexter: Resurrection; Fauda; For All Mankind; Foundation; Hijack; Memory of a Killer; MobLand; Outlander; Paradise; Presumed Innocent; Severance; Silo; Slow Horses; Smoke; Star City; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Tehran;The: Day of the Jackal, Diplomat, Night Agent; Your Friends & Neighbors +books, films, music, podcasts, politics
George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.
Chuck Todd interviews me about alternate histories
It's been 50 years since Martin Cooper famously put in a call in his handheld cellphone in April 1973. And I've now been interviewed three times about how this now ubiquitous device has revolutionized our lives:
So, it's a good time to talk about cellphones -- in contrast to talking on or via cellphones, when you're not using them to text, take pictures, listen to music, or roam the many fields of social media (for my thoughts on which, see my New New Media).
And speaking of pictures on the phone and music, you might enjoy this demo from 2020.
Some profound media theory in tonight's episode 7.6 of Ray Donovan, from the mouth of the redoubtable Sandy. She remarks, when a cellphone is the object of discussion, that she prefers phone booths to cellphones, because of, well, the things that a man can do for a woman in a phone booth but not in a cell phone. Of course, that could also well be what a woman can and can't do for a woman in a phone booth, but I'm guessing that's not or wasn't the way Sandy rolls. It is true, and now a great point of historical observation, that cell phones have all but eliminated phone booths, though based on my casual observation, they just may be making something of a comeback in New York City. Whether it's for the reason Sandy stated ... ok, enough of that already.
Meanwhile, we got another good hour of story on tonight's episode. Smitty continues to be in fine form, and he and Terry had some outstanding scenes, from the bathroom to the car. I'm really not liking Detective Perry. She left Terry alone, not really able to drive his car. She has to know, given how much attention she's given to the Donovans, that he has Parkinson's. At very least, she must have seen him shaking. And her boss told her to drop the case. I'd say she's out of control, lacks a heart, or both.
The closing scenes with Ray and Daryll were significant and top-notch, too. The two have always had something of a tension or a history between them. At this point, Daryll is also more upset than usual because he killed someone. And he doesn't appreciate Ray trying to interfere with what Daryll, Sandy, and Mick are doing. But accusing Ray of racism is unexpected. What Daryll saying that just to rile himself up, or has Ray really been racist to Daryll? Condescending, yes. But I'm not sure I'd say racist. And that's what made those scenes so interesting.
This whole season has a subtly different, more psychologically sensitive approach than the earlier seasons. That's maybe one of the reasons I'm liking it as one of the best.
It started in the hot summer of 1960, when Marilyn Monroe walked off the set of The Misfits and began to hear a haunting song in her head, "Goodbye Norma Jean" ... Marilyn and Monet
Hey, just a week left to see Dead Man's Cell Phone in Hartford, starring my friend Mark Shanahan - who also narrates the audio book of The Plot to Save Socrates and lots of my other science fiction.
Mark's a fine actor, by the way, and one of the best things I did in my time as Chair of the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham was bring in Mark to teach courses on Hitchcock, Film in New York, and other intriguing subjects... The New York Times review has all the time and place details for the play, and below are two videos of me discoursing on the impact of the cellphone...
Well, Canadians get it ... the above is a clip from CBC-TV's Cell Phone: The Ring Heard Around the World, aired in Canada on April 3, in which I talk about the intersection of the Obama and cell phone revolutions.... Nice to hear the Canadians say Obama may be our next President. Significantly, he is the only Presidential candidate featured in this show.
You can see the complete 40+ minute program - with me talking my head off about the history of the cell phone and its growing importance in our lives - on the CBC's website. Some other fine guests on the show, too - including inventor of the camera-phone Philippe Kahn and the space-faring Richard Branson.
Featured on the show....
"A superb and often amusing account of one of the greatest revolutions in human history" --Arthur C. Clarke
Because ... locks are not the way of the digital age...
I just saw George Hotz on CNN, and since I can't very well applaud through the screen, I thought I might do it here:
Bravo, George, for unlocking iPhone!
What, exactly, does this mean?
The iPhone from Apple comes "locked" when purchased - meaning, it can only work with an AT&T sim card - you know, the card on which you have phone numbers from the phone you're currently using. The sim is a great enhancement to cell phone service - it means your directory is not hostage to the phone you're currently using.
But what is someone to do who buys an iPhone, but is currently using a phone with a sim from a non-At&T carrier? In George Hotz's case, that carrier was T-Mobile.
Well, the 17-year old took apart his iPhone, and after two months of tinkering and analyzing and soldering, he got his iPhone to work with his T-Mobile sim.
Which is exactly the way it should have been, all along.
Apple and AT&T may not like it, but what George Hotz did is perfectly legal - owners of cell phones have the right to put in whatever sim card they choose. Apple may have locked the iPhone, but George Hotz, having purchased his iPhone, had every right to unlock it, if he could.
I think he's taught Apple and AT&T a very important lesson in the digital age. It doesn't like locks.
the complete, current run of my YouTube video clips ... 51 videos in all ... including 3 of Bill O'Reilly v. me ... Jack Thompson v. me ... Jesse Ventura interviews me ... clips from my appearances on the Discovery Channel (talking about cell phones) and the History Channel (talking about science fiction) ... more ... over 200,000 views as of April 2010 ...
will be automatically updated when new video clips are added...
Well, just about every literate person will recognize "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree..." and most will have heard the story behind it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was in an opium trance. He started writing that beautiful poem. Fifty-two equally splendid lines came forth- but Coleridge was interrupted by a knock on the door, from a "person on business from Porlock," according to Coleridge's notes...
And by the time he got back to his poem, he had lost it - leaving us just the fragment.
Some cynics claim that Coleridge made up the whole incident to explain his unfinished fragment - that there was no person from Porlock who interrupted him. Others, seeing some high moral ground in the story, accept it, and point to the pitfalls of drugs as its primary lesson.
I don’t know whether the story is true or false. But it has always struck me as having a completely different lesson: the vulnerability of the creative impulse, indeed our thoughts at any time, to interruption from the outside world.
And I’ve long held that this capacity to interrupt - to shatter our inner world when a call comes in at an inopportune time - is the one real drawback of the cellphone. The very power that the cellphone gives to make a call, to express ourselves at the instant we wish, is turned against us when we receive a call we would rather not have - or, even if we receive a call that would otherwise be welcome, at a different time.
Of course, we can turn off our phone - but that incurs social penalties, such as having to explain to callers why our phone was off.
But, optimist that I am, I can see a route to hope: had the iPhone or any cell phones with Internet connections existed back in the late 1790s, the person on business from Porlock might not have needed to pay a call on Coleridge in the first place. He might have received what he needed on the Internet, the access to which is entering a whole new realm of ease via cell phones. And maybe Coleridge, had he been writing "In Xanadu" on his iPhone or Blackberry, might have been able to retrieve more of his memory with the visceral stimulus of the device in hand. And here's the really crucial point- hold it, there’s someone knocking at my door-
I haven't done any surveys, but I'd bet cell phones are the most frequently replaced little technologies in our culture today. I know I get a new model every one or two years - more often than getting a new car, and, unlike the car, there's not much of a market for "pre-owned" cell phones.
CellForCash.com has stepped up with an option - a site that pays you for your old cell phone. Rather than putting your old phone in a drawer somewhere, with just a few old socks for company, you can sell it to CellForCash. You search on the manufacturer, put in a model number, and up pops the money offer. Hey, if you'd rather just donate your phone, you can do that, too. That surely also beats leaving your phone to the mothballs in your drawer.
The site itself is really fun, and easy to use. It has a ticker running at the bottom with cell phone models and the cash they can bring you. If you like the cash offer - hey, what's not to like, even a small amount of cash is better than none, and some of the models command $50 or $60 - CellForCash can send you a free postage-paid box for you to mail your phone to them and receive your cash in return. It's that easy to sell a cell phone to CellForCash.com.
They also have giveaway promotions on the site, referral fees if you recommend other people who want to sell their old cell phones, and all kinds of other goodies. I've never needed a reason to be on the verge of buying a brand new cell phone, but now that I know I can sell my old cell phone to CellForCash, I'll be unstoppable...
[Ooops - the following taping has been rescheduled - I'll keep you posted on the show date.]
Hey, I'll be interviewed (taped) on Forbes.com Video Network show The Download tomorrow at their Times Square studios...
The show will go live on the Web on Wednesday - I'll post the specific url then, but you can just go to http://www.forbes.com/video/
I'll be talking about what's still needed in mobile phone technology ...
I'll try to subtly wave or smile to all InfiniteRegress.tv readers.
In the meantime, here's another look at what I had to say about the cell phone's past, present, and future, on a Discovery Channel show this past December (actually taped back in June 2006)...
With Live Earth playing across the globe today, I thought I'd share with you 9 reasons why I'm delighted to be driving a Prius (which I've been doing since last August):
1. Obviously, I'm spending less money on gas.
2. But filling up at the gas station is no pleasure even when the price of gas isn't a problem. Who wants to bake in the hot sun and breathe in fumes in the summer? Who wants to shiver in the wicked cold wind and breathe in fumes in the winter? (This may be a special issue for me - every gas station I visit in the winter seems to be on the windiest corner in the world.)
3. It's fun to lord it over Cro-magnons* and other recalcitrants who love to say, hey, you talk the environmentalist talk, do you walk the walk? Well, I drive the drive, baby...
*(In view of the Geico commercials, I'm sensitive to the species-stereotyping that Neanderthals regularly receive, and therefore I'm refraining from using "Neanderthal" as a colorful synonym for "benighted". Also, Neanderthals play a role in my first novel, The Silk Code.)
4.. Birds and other little critters don't flee for their lives at the approach of my car. When the ICE - internal combustible engine - is off, the Prius drives in stealth mode, and it's sweet indeed. I'm hoping one of these days the birds and chipmunks and who knows what else will follow me down the road, and we'll all burst into song, like in a Disney movie.
5. On the Wikipedia page for the Prius, there's section that appears on and off again with a list of famous Prius owners - you know, like Larry David - and I was on it. (Actually, the list was up for a year, and some Cro-magnon removed it in May. You can see it in archive here, if you're interested. Anyone can reinstate it...) (I could, but won't, because I'm too modest ... nah, not really, I just don't believe in editing Wikipedia pages that concern me, unless it's correcting an outright error.) (When the list was up, being on it was sometimes my #1 reason for loving my Prius...)
6. I love listening to podcasts via my Prius' Bluetooth feature. There's something very cool about hearing a voice that you know as you drive with the windows open on a Spring day. (If you want to hear me, by the way, you can dial 415-223-4124 for my Levinson news clips 3-minute TV reviews, 510-248-0382 for 3 minutes of advice to writers, 415-223-4122 for my infamous Light On Light Through podcast.) (It's all free, except of course for the call.)
7. The car unlocks at your mere approach. This feels to me like something straight out of a science fiction story I read back in the 1950s. Maybe by Alfred Bester?
8. Locking the car is cool, too - by pressing any one of the small black buttons located strategically around the outside of the car.
9. The rear window actually is in two parts, and the lower part somehow rarely gets covered with snow, even in big storms. This means you can jump in your car and get going without having to clean it off completely off - especially useful to me when I'm late and in a hurry, which is almost always.
And I'll leave it there. Not every list has to come to ten.
And I actually have more than ten reasons, but I do also want to mention one thing I don't like about my Prius, just to prove how very objective I am about the car:
I don't like the silver color. For some reason, that's been the color of almost every car I've ever owned. Actually, I do know the reason - I'm always wanting to get my car as quickly as possible (see #9 above), and so I accept whatever color the dealer has in stock. And it always seems to be silver.
But, hey, boring color is a small price to pay when you can do something for the environment, and smile down critics who like to say that environmentalists are hypocrites.
****
Like science fiction? Jump into my short story, The Other Car, in which a Prius is a bridge to an alternate reality
Useful links: "My Sweet Prius" and "Prius and the Reunion of Talking and Walking", both at Light On Light Through podcast ... Sweet Prius is near the middle on Light On Light Through player, Talking and Walking, from October, is at the bottom...
Interesting piece posted in Gizmodo by Wilson Rothman this morning - History Lesson: iPhone May Sell Fast, but not RAZR fast - which says that although 500,000 - 600,000 iPhones were sold over the weekend, Steve Jobs expects to sell only 10 million in the next 18 months.
Rothman goes on to point out that Motorola's RAZR sold 50 million in its first two years. He think Jobs is likely right that the iPhone won't achieve that, and attributes the slower growth to iPhone being perceived as being in the "smartphone" category, which has lower sales than more general cell phones.
I think that's an astute assessment - but I disagree.
First, a little background.
The evolution of media never runs smooth, and in fact is often wildly unpredictable when it comes to diffusion of new media into the general population. The telephone itself took 75 years to get into more than 50 percent of American homes - that didn't happen until the 1950s. In contrast, television was in 90 percent of American homes by the end of the 1950s - just 10 years after its commercial introduction.
The reasons that some technologies catch on much more quickly than others vary. In the case of the telephone, the problem was that your phone did you no good unless people you wanted to talk to also had phones. The telephone, in other words, lacked the necessary social infrastructure at first - it had to be built, from the ground up. In contrast, once you had a television set, it didn't matter whether your friends and sister across town also had one. And the social structure of simultaneous, instantaneous mass media - of sitting in your living room every night and being entertained, with countless anonymous others entertained in their living rooms - had already been constructed by radio.
I'm predicting sales of iPhones will go through the roof, and defy expectations. The reason: the iPhone's infrastructure is already here, and robust. It is the Web, and all the services on it. All the social, economic, political, aesthetic, cultural, etc doings of the Web are grist for the iPhone.
It's a trip not to an uncharted land, but to a city already open for business and teeming.... It is now the best of telephone, and will soon be the best of television.
Well, Blackfriars' Marketing reports, above, that the buzz about the iPhone is diminishing just slighlty - I'd guess it's the inevitable Sunday morning coming down, but we'll see ...
Even so, Blackfriars says this Google news article level "is certainly higher than [for] any other consumer electronics launch we've tracked".
Of course it is, and you gotta love it - some portion of the buzz about iPhones is being generated - written and posted - through iPhones themselves. I've seen numerous posts saying somethinng the lines of this is the first thing I'm doing on my iPhone.
So although the iPhone's images and sounds are its most high-profile features, text is right up there too, making the iPhone another salvo for literacy.
The infrastructure - the teeming Web - was of course already there. I'm betting the iPhone will strengthen its best attributes, and lift it to new heights.
I've seen a grouse or three about all the attention the iPhone has been getting. But it's been a long time in coming, and deserves its day in the sunny blogosphere.
Yeah, I'm a fan... been so since the late 1970s...
Brief post to mark, with pleasure, the arrival of the iPhone...
The cornucopia of the Internet - what I call the "medium of media" - songs, YouTube, e-mail, the works - on your cell phone.
I wrote, in my doctoral dissertation way back in 1979 - "Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media" - p. 275, that "the wireless, portable evolution of media should continue to the point of providing any individual with access to all the information of the planet, from any place on the planet, indoors and outdoors, and of course even beyond the planet itself as communication extends into the solar system and cosmos beyond." And I added, on p. 276, that this "'systemless' system ... will eventually give the individual the same unrestrained access to information on the global basis that the individual has always enjoyed to information in the immediate physical environment."
I expected that to happen in my lifetime, but maybe not this soon.
After all, 1979 was the very very dawn of our personal computer age.
And here's a clip of me on the Discovery Channel, this past December, talking about the import of cell phones in our lives...
A fine day ... but, I'll probably wait a little until the price of the iPhone and its service comes down. I'm not only a happy futurist, but a cheapskate...
I always loved The Police - Sting's band, that is. It's rare to hear something that strikes you as utterly original and appealing, and continues to do so every time you hear it, for decades.
At first encounter, "Every Breath You Take" struck me as a new take on the age-old obsessive love song. But before the song was over, I was realizing that the "I'll Be Watching You," which also felt like the title of that song, was more than personal. It was social, and the "I" was the omnipresent Eye of Big Brother.
That was 1983, just a year before 1984, so of course I was thinking of Big Brother. But 1984 came and went, and the song stayed, just below the surface but somehow always relevant, and it was just recently that I realized how it really applies:
It was and is a harbinger of YouYube, of cams and videocams in cell phones, or the personal media that make every one one of us a producer who can take clip of you and put it up on YouTube where it can be viewed by millions in a few minutes.
"I'll Be Watching You" is a mantra to this new all-seeing transparent world. I enjoy it - I like being public, that's why I write and go on tv and radio. But it doesn't really matter if you want to be a star in someone's video or not. The point is that you can, and that getting on YouTube is becoming as natural as someone looking at you as you walk down the street...
So "I'll Be Watching You - Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make" has more relevance than ever. It could be programmed to play in every cell phone, and that would be all right.
In the meantime, you can hear it in the new police cd - 30th anniversary, double disk. "I'll Be Watching You" is by no means the only great Police recording. "Spirits in the Material World," "Roxanne," and lots of other gems are on this police cd.
Hey, don't surprised if, as you're listening to it, and grooving to it, someone will be watching you...
Blurbs, details, reviews, links to free samples, videos, etc here about my novels and scholarly books:
thanks to Joel Iskowitz for illustrating the nine above covers
three short books
Featured Books Chronica - sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates and Unburning Alexandria
In this sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates and Unburning Alexandria, Sierra arrives in 2062, and finds the world has somewhat changed. Joe Biden was President from 2009-2017, and train travel is much more prominent. Was this due to the scrolls that she rescued from the ancient Library of Alexandria? Heron's Chronica, which describes how to build a time travel device and was one of the texts Sierra saved from burning, has not yet been published, and Sierra soon realizes that Heron is bent on doing everything in his lethal power to prevent that from happening. Her attempt to safeguard the Chronica, which she left in William Henry Appleton's keeping, takes her to the end of the 1890s, where she crosses paths with John Jacob Astor IV, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, J. P. Morgan, film pioneers William Dickson and Edwin Porter, and other denizens of The Gilded Age. With the Chronica at large, the keys to time travel are up for grabs, and with it the history and future of the world.
My sixth novel, sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates, continues the story of Sierra Waters ...
Mid-twenty-first century time traveler Sierra Waters, fresh from her mission to save Socrates from the hemlock, is determined to alter history yet again, by saving the ancient Library of Alexandria - where as many as 750,000 one-of-a-kind texts were lost, an event described by many as “one of the greatest intellectual catastrophes in history.”
Along the way she will encounter old friends such as William Henry Appleton the great 19th century American publisher and enemies like the enigmatic time travelling inventor Heron of Alexandria. And her quest will involve such other real historic personages as Hypatia, Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe, Ptolemy the astronomer, and St. Augustine - again placing her friends, her loved-ones, and herself in deadly jeopardy. In this sequel to THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES, award winning author Paul Levinson offers another time-traveling adventure spanning millennia, full of surprising twists and turns, all the while attempting the seemingly impossible: UNBURNING ALEXANDRIA.
Here's a free chapter from Unburning Alexandria, on SF Signal.
Reviews
"Levinson's stories are intricately plotted and avoid the tricky Gordian knots of paradoxes with skill and fun." - John DeNardo, Kirkus
"You get used to reading verbal bombshells when you read Paul Levinson’s science fiction works.... characters say things like, 'I was here, in Carthage, three months from now'.” - Jim Curtis, The Morton Report "little quirkinesses ... and a lot of clever ideas" - GF Willmetts, SFCrowsnest
"Not since Ilium had a novel kept me reading into the wee hours of dusk (I finished this sucker at 3:30 am, unable to resist immediately tweeting my triumph from the mountain tops). Just before tossing all aces like a godforsaken magician, Levinson shuffled his paradoxes like a deck of cards, and I have to admit, stoked the flames of my imagination. It was a great ride." - Shane Lindemoen "one of those extremely rare sequels that end up better than its predecessor ... worthy of the title, blockbuster, if this were a movie ... by far the best time travel story I've ever read" - Scott Sandridge, SpecMusicMuse
"a great example of using the text to put the reader in a similar state as the characters... I also love that the novel seems to be heading toward one of my favorite time travel ideas: the idea of causal loops" - Ethan Mills, Examined Worlds: Philosophy and Science Fiction
~~~ +++ ~~~
on 10 Perfect Summer Reads Author by NYU Alumni list, along with novels by Joseph Heller, Suzanne Collins, Candace Bushnell, and Danielle Steel My fifth novel is a blend of historical mystery and science fiction...a tale of time travel and ancient intrigue...
Sierra Waters, a graduate student in the year 2042, is given a copy of a previously unknown Socratic dialogue in which a time traveler gives the philosopher a tempting plan to escape the hemlock...
What they're saying about the novel...
"...challenging fun" - Entertainment Weekly
"Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"...a fun book to read" - Dallas Morning News
"resonates with the current political climate . . . . heroine Sierra Waters is sexy as hell . . . . there's a bite to Levinson's wit" - Brian Charles Clark, Curled Up With A Good Book at curledup.com
"a journey through time that'll make you think as it thrills ... so accessible, even those generally put off by sci-fi should enjoy the trip." - Rod Lott, bookgasm.com
"Levinson spins a fascinating tale ... An intriguing premise with believable characters and attention to period detail make this an outstanding choice... Highly recommended." - Library Journal, *starred review
"Light, engaging time-travel yarn . . . neatly satisfies the circularity inherent in time travel, whose paradoxes Levinson links to Greek philosophy." - Publishers Weekly
"A thinking person's time travel story... I felt like I was there." - SF Signal
"This is a dazzling performance. . . .History as science fiction; science fiction as history." - Barry N. Malzberg
"... quick-to-read, entertaining treatment of the problems inherent in time travel with style and flair" - Booklist
"There's a delightfully old-fashioned feel to The Plot to Save Socrates. . . . Levinson's cool, spare style reminded me of the writing of Isaac Asimov. . ." - Colin Harvey, Strange Horizons
"Paul Levinson's new novel is both very different from anything he has done before and very satisfying. . . . This, I think, is the first of Levinson's novels to deserve to be called a tour de force. Watch for it on award ballots." - Tom Easton, Analog: Science Fiction and Fact
"it's exciting to see a book as daring with both its ideas and its approach to narrative structure as this one hit the shelves . . . It's an absolute treat to sit back and be wrapped up in a story that gives a retro SF premise like time travel such a brilliant new kick, and it's doubly delightful to find the story as fun and entertaining as it is thought-provoking." - SF Reviews.net
"proves that excellent entertainment can and ought to be intellectually respectable -- a glorious example to us all." - Brian Stableford
"...readers are sure to enjoy his take on the paradoxes of time travel" - BookPage
"Intricately and intriguingly woven, lots of fun, and extremely thought provoking." - Stanley Schmidt
"Paul Levinson has outdone himself: The Plot to Save Socrates is a philosophically rich gem full of big ideas and wonderful time-travel tricks." - Robert J. Sawyer
"as happens with Kurt Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim . . . . the reader soon becomes unstuck in time . . . . Levinson presents one of the most unique books I've ever encountered. A highly recommended read." - Matt St. Amand
"Paul Levinson brings both intellectual heft and affection for his delightfully depicted characters to this highly original story of time travel . . . bringing all of its threads together in an ending that is emotionally satisfying and extremely moving. The Plot to Save Socrates will provoke thought long after readers have finished the book, at which point many may want to pick it up and read it again, to savor its twists and turns." - Pamela Sargent, SFWeekly
"Fast-paced and full of plot twists." - Davis Enterprise (California)
"an elaborately-reasoned temporal tale - a novelized thought experiment whose logic and ideas Socrates would have approved of" - John Joseph Adams, intergalacticmedicineshow.com
"a philosophically rich, engaging time travel story . . . a charming portrayal of Socrates" - Fantasybookspot.com
"a fun romp through 2500 years of Western history" - freshfiction.com
"I've never read anything like this before . . . The Plot to Save Socrates is highly, original, creative, and engaging. I enjoyed it from the first page." - Book.of.the.moment. at myspace.com/book_of_the_moment.com
"revels in the possibilities for paradoxes . . . . fresh and welcome" - Steven Silver's Reviews at sfsite
"frankly, he [Levinson] is one of my 'read on sight' authors . . . The Plot to Save Socrates is a tapestry of times and characters and philosophies, with an excellent look at history. . . ." - Jerry Wright, Bewildering Stories at bewilderingstories.com
"a very intelligently written novel . . . ." - GF Willmetts, at SFcrowsnest.com
"Paul Levinson handles a complicated plot and a multitude of characters in a manner that can only be described as masterful. . . . I highly recommend this book, and I won't be surprised if it wins several awards." - Scott M. Sandridge, specmusicmuse
"This book was a lot of fun, and surprisingly poignant at the end. (Yes, I'll admit I cried a little.) . . . I was worried this would be a fairly cold sci-fi book, where I never got to like any of the characters, but somehow by halfway through I found I really cared about them. I'm not sure how Levinson managed that . . . but somehow they all just got inside me." - Lady Amalthea, eharlequin.com
". . . a new metaphor for the literary tradition of time travel." - Robert Blechman, blogcritics.org
"Socrates has always seemed a rather dour and dull figure to me but Paul Levinson breathes new life into this time." - Debbie, ck2skwipsandkritiques.com
"truly a thought-provoking, breathtaking, and highly entertaining novel." - Lysette Brodey, PerpetualProse.com
"The Plot to Save Socrates turns on its head Plato's report of Socrates' poisoning ..." - Gerry Elman, Esq., Stanford Alumni Blog
"Doppelgangers, deception, and the sheer amount of historical reference alone make this novel magnificent, but that is not all!... Paul Levinson has created a historical text for all ages, making the plot flow like wine and pleasing to even the most hesitant of readers." - Jenna A, luxuryreading.com
"I was hooked by the second page." - Kanti Burns, Book Reviews and More
"A lively cast of historical figures populates this epoch-bending adventure, highly recommended especially for fans of alternate history novels!" - Midwest Book Review
"I was rapidly drawn into this tapestry ..." - Kath Middleton, Ignite Books
"Cool stuff!" - Examined Worlds: Philosophy and Science Fiction
"This single timeline approach is more elegant and more convoluted than other theories, and Levinson handles it extremely well, jumping the narrative through twenty-five hundred years without missing a beat." - Greg Hickey, Socrates, Time Travel, and Donald Trump
In "one of my favorite novels, The Plot to Save Socrates by Paul Levinson ... the recovery of a previously unknown dialogue of Plato prompts an engaging time travel story ... " - Zachary Fruhling Blog
"An adventurous story, where characters from the past, present, and future travel to different eras and cultures. They live their mundane lives there – talk, eat, fight, love, and die – while trying to bend history without destroying it." - Andrey Mir, Time Travel and Media Ecology
The Plot to Save Socrates... now available in "author's cut" ebook!
my avatar reads from the very beginning of The Plot to Save Socrates ... in Second Life ... it starts "Athens, 2042... Sierra Waters had always done everything for the thrill..."
and here's an excerpt from a heretofore unknown Socratic dialogue...
A group has been formed to help Sierra Waters in her adventures:
New New Media, 1st edition, published by Penguin/Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, September 2009
Joan Walsh, Editor-in-Chief of Salon.com, says
Paul Levinson takes you on a walking tour – actually, it's more like a running tour – of the media innovations that are transforming our world. He's not just a scholar, he's an explorer, immersing himself in MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and multiple blogging platforms to help us make sense of the galloping changes in media. Have we entered a glorious new era of media democracy, or are these innovations leveling standards of fairness and authority? Levinson remains an optimist without being blind to the dark side of change. Whether you want to learn to blog, podcast or Twitter yourself, or just keep track of the way such tools are remaking the world around you, the "New New Media" is an indispensable guide.
Jeff Jarvis, Director of New Media Program, City University of New
York's Graduate School of Journalism; Founder, Entertainment Weekly; Creator, BuzzMachine blog, says
Paul Levinson provides an invaluable and encyclopaedic guide to the newest of new media invented so far.
Mignon Fogarty, creator of the award-winning Grammar Girl podcast, and author of the New York Times bestseller Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing , says
Insightful and comprehensive. The overviews are great for people who want to quickly get up-to-speed on the entire landscape or more experienced Web addicts who want to branch out, and the anecdotes and history will delight people who consider themselves old-timers.
40-minute lecture February 23, 2011, at St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY: "North Africa Shows the Medium is Still the Message: McLuhan at 100" with discussion of new new media ...
20-minute interview Mark Molaro did with Paul Levinson on The Alcove, November 2007 ...
Penguin/Pearson/Allyn & Bacon's promotional video for New New Media...
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The Silk Code
The Silk Code, winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel of 1999, features NYPD forensic detective Dr. Phil D'Amato - hero of three of my earlier award-nominated novelettes. Published by Tor Books, it reached #8 on the Locus Paperback Best Seller List in February 2001.
Watch the trailer here....
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
"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, 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
"...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 "I was entertained" - The Review Curmudgeon
Cellphone: The Story of the World's Most Mobile Medium and How It Has Transformed Everything!
Cellphone covers everything from books to laptops in exploring the the evolution of media mobility. It focuses on the personal impact and social change-- both freeing and limiting-- of the smartphone in every day life.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke called Cellphone "A superb and often amusing account of one of the greatest revolutions in human history, in which we are now living. The wristwatch phone of the old science fiction stories is now a reality! What more can we expect? Direct brain to brain communication? Stay tuned...."
Douglas Rushkoff, writing in TheFeature.com, says Cellphone makes "an excellent case."
Carlin Romano, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, says, "Levinson maintains a sense of humor about the rush to pack every imaginable function into cells."
British MediaWeek calls the book "a thought-provoking analysis".
Talking in the media about Cellphone...
I appeared on National Public Radio's popular program Talk of the Nation in May 2004, talking about my book in a segment called "Cell Phone Culture"... Listen here...
In April 2005, I talked about my book on a nationally broadcast CBS News "The Early Show" segment on kids and cellphones as part of their special series, "Cellular Nation." See the interview and read an excerpt from the book....
I talked about cellphone bling on ABC's Nightline, September 2006.
And The Discovery Channel's new series, "The Inside Story of..." premiered in December 2006 with a look at "The Cellphone Revolution" featuring me talking about the extraordinary social impact of the cellphone... check out the video.
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Realspace: The Fate of Physical Presence in the Digital Age, On and Off Planet
Realspace explores the need for real face-to-face interaction and physical movement in an age of cyberspace... the destiny of humanity to reach beyond this planet and explore outer space...and how these themes play in our 21st century world.
Publisher's Weekly says "Fans of Levinson's previous works, as well as those interested in the relations between cyberspace, 'real space' and outer space, should relish this challenging and mind-opening read."
The Midwest Book Review says "RealSpace is an essential, thought-provoking purchase."
Public Intelligence Blog says RealSpace is "a gem of reflection."
And Edward Tenner, author of Why Things Bite Back, called Realspace "a rich, original, and sophisticated work that will be rewarding reading both for science fiction enthusiasts and for professionals in the history and sociology of science and technology."
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Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium
Professors in graduate and undergraduate classes around the world use Digital McLuhan to help their students put the Internet into perspective. This book applies media theorist Marshall McLuhan's ideas from the television age to modern technologies. Wired's Kevin Kelly said about Digital McLuhan, "Paul Levinson completes McLuhan's pioneering work. Read this book if you want to decipher life on the screen." The New York Times said "Levinson performs a useful service ... [he] applies McLuhan's work to almost every facet of modern communications" and in another article "Digital McLuhan presents McLuhan in a new light, [for] a generation grappling with the transforming effects of cyberspace, cell phones and virtual reality." Digital McLuhan was included on the late Robert Anton Wilson's " Recommended Reading List," of "the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century." Digital McLuhan won the "2000 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship".
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The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution
The Soft Edge received major critical acclaim -- ranging from Wired ("Remarkable in both scholarly sweep and rhetorical lyricism...") and The Financial Times of London ("a book that is both full of insights and provocative") to Amazon.com's Cyberculture editor ("Levinson has a knack for making his reader feel intelligent and respected") and Analog ("...defies the critics of technology").
3 scholars ponder the meaning of The Soft Edge
I talked about The Soft Edge on December 30, 1997 at Borders Bookstore at the World Trade Center. CSPAN recorded the talk and aired it in February 1998. The bookstore was destroyed on 9/11.
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More fiction ...
Borrowed Tides
My second novel, Borrowed Tides, tells the story of the first mission to Alpha Centauri led by a philosopher of science and a specialist in Native American mythology, two old friends from the Bronx in their seventies. From the reviews: Library Journal said Borrowed Tides is "...packed with layers of meaning that blend ancient legends and modern science and provides an intriguing glimpse into the mysteries of time and space." Gerald Jonas in The New York Times Book Review said that Borrowed Tides is "....bizarre enough to satisfy readers..." Booklist called it a "to-the-last-page spellbinder." Publishers' Weekly said "Politics blends neatly with spirituality in Levinson's second novel ... an ingenious narrative that loops back on itself like a Moebius strip." Gary K. Wolfe, writing in Locus, said "Levinson does a terrific job .... [reminiscent] of the philosophic space fiction of James Blish or the reality-testing scenarios of Philip K. Dick." Locus also picked it as "New and Notable" in April 2001, and it was a May 2001 Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) Selection. On the other hand, Adam Wendt said "it has some interesting ideas but no depth" on his Agnostic Audiophile Smorgasborg blog.
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The Consciousness Plague
Dr. Phil D'Amato returns in a gripping New York City science fiction mystery, as this NYPD forensics detective faces a strange series of murders and memory losses in The Consciousness Plague. This novel won the 2003 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work. Roland Green, writing in Booklist, said The Consciousness Plague "more nearly reaches the heights of Isaac Asimov's classic sf mysteries than those of most other genre hands who attempt them manage to do these days." Tom Easton said in the November 2002 issue of Analog that "This is Levinson's best to date." Library Journal said "Levinson's intelligent blend of police procedural and speculative fiction should appeal to fans of mystery and sf." Locus' Gary K. Wolfe called it "a pretty crisp murder mystery." Paul Di Filippo said in SFWeekly that "D'Amato [is] ... an earnest Everyman, operating on a shoeshine and a hunch." And Gregg Thurlbeck in Rambles.net said "it's a clever amalgam of science fiction and police procedural." Locus picked The Consciousness Plague as "New and Notable" in April 2002. And it was selected as a Spring 2002 Science Fiction Book Club (SFBC) Featured Alternate and a Spring Editor's Pick of the Mystery Guild. The audiobook edition of The Consciousness Plague, read by Mark Shanahan, was nominated for a 2005 Audie award.
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The Pixel Eye
My fourth novel from Tor is a darker, gritty Phil D'Amato mystery with sf overtones. The Pixel Eye, where holograms, cellphones and squirrels are used for surveillance in near-future New York City -- published in hardcover in 2003 and trade paper in 2004. . . .
The New York Times Book Review said "The nuttiness of the premise and the grittiness of the near-future New York ambiance are equally appealing" and they selected and reprinted several paragraphs from The Pixel Eye in the August 17, 2003 "NY Bookshelf: Novels: Tales of Detectives, Art and Squirrels" feature in The City section -- one of four new "New York" books.
Tom Easton, writing in Analog, said "Paul Levinson's latest Phil D'Amato romp ... is nicely straightforward and an interesting take on the real world of the moment."
Publisher's Weekly calls The Pixel Eye a "breezily chilling story" and says it is "enough to send a shiver down most readers' spines."
Library Journal said "Levinson's latest novel featuring the resourceful and wise-cracking D'Amato delivers another satisfying mix of hard sf intrigue and detective story set against a 21st-century New York City" that is "a fast-moving story that belongs in most libraries."
SF Weekly says "The Pixel Eye is a thoroughly enjoyable book, extremely readable, and brave in confronting the consequences of September 11."
Cinescape says "D'Amato is a charming narrator, and an intriguing character, which also contributes to Pixel's successes."
SFRevu says "Long time readers of science fiction should consider him [Levinson] their first choice when it comes to spreading the word of sf..."
The Pixel Eye was a finalist for the 2004 Prometheus Award, given by The Libertarian Futurist Society.
My award-winning short fiction - science fiction, dark fantasy, mystery - has appeared ten times in Analog, the leading science fiction magazine. My 29 short stories, novelettes, and novellas have also been published in anthologies, reprinted, translated, and adapted into other genres.
Among the highlights:
"The Chronology Protection Case" introduced my popular NYPD forensic detective, Dr. Phil D'Amato, who comes up against no less an antagonist than the Universe itself, attempting to prevent scientists from discovering the secret of time travel. This novelette went on to be a finalist for the Nebula and Sturgeon awards and was adapted into a short film, and into a radio play that was performed at New York's Museum of Television and Radio and nominated for the 2002 Edgar Award for Best Play. The story has been reprinted four times, including in Barry Malzberg's collection The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time. Phil D'Amato returns in "The Copyright Notice Case" and "The Mendelian Lamp Case", and in three of my novels.
Enjoy the Edgar-nominated 38-minute radioplay of "The Chronology Protection Case"
The Chronology Protection Case Edgar nominee 2002 best radio play
or see the 90-second trailer for Jay Kensinger's 2002 movie of my story...
Added May 2009: And here's the complete, uncut, 43-minute movie!
~~~ +++ ~~~ "Loose Ends" is the first in a series of stories in which a group of people who are trying to revive the US space program send Jeff Harris back in time to stop the Challenger disaster - but he gets pulled off-course and lands in November 1963 and is presented with other opportunities as he lives through the 1960s again, and travels to other times as well. This novella was a finalist in the sf short fiction "triple sweeps" - the Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards - and was followed in Analog by "Little Differences" and "Late Lessons"; the concluding story in the set will be "Last Calls".
My stories have appeared in anthologies edited by Orson Scott Card, Jane Yolen, Jack Dann, Marty Greenberg, Kathryn Cramer and others - and in David Hartwell's 1998 The Year's Best SF 3. You can find a complete list of anthologies with my science fiction stories in my Amazon store.
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Awards
• 2023 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work winner -- "It's Real Life" (short story &
radio play)
• 2022 Sidewise Award for Alternate History (short form) finalist: "It's Real Life" (short story)
• 2005 Neil Postman Award for Outstanding Public Intellectual winner -- given by the Media
Ecology Association
• 2005 "Audie" Award finalist -- The Consciousness Plague audiobook
• 2004 Teacher of the Year winner -- given by Fordham University's Graduate Student Association
• 2004 Prometheus Award finalist -- The Pixel Eye
• 2003 Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work winner -- The Consciousness Plague
• 2002 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Play nominee -- "The Chronology Protection Case"
• 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel winner -- The Silk Code
• 2000 Barnes & Noble Maiden Voyages Award for Best First Novel runner-up -- The Silk Code
• 2000 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship winner -- Digital McLuhan
• 1999 Homer Award finalist, novelette --"Little Differences"
• 1999 Homer Award finalist, novelette --"The Orchard"
• 1999 Sturgeon Award finalist, short story --"Advantage, Bellarmine"
• 1999 Homer Award finalist, short story --"Advantage, Bellarmine"
• 1998 Hugo Award finalist, novella --"Loose Ends"
• 1998 Sturgeon Award finalist, novella -- "Loose Ends"
• 1998 AnLab Award first runner-up, novella --"Loose Ends"
• 1998 Homer Award finalist, short story --"A Medal for Harry"
• 1997 Nebula Award finalist, novella --"Loose Ends"
• 1997 Nebula Award finalist, novelette --"The Copyright Notice Case"
• 1996 Homer Award winner, novelette -- "The Copyright Notice Case"
• 1996 Nebula Award finalist, novelette -- "The Chronology Protection Case"
• 1996 Sturgeon Award finalist, novelette -"The Chronology Protection Case"
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"This is a dazzling performance. . . .History as science fiction; science fiction as history." - Barry N. Malzberg 
