...The Plot to Save Socrates.... 'challenging fun' -Entertainment Weekly ... 'Da Vinci-esque thriller' -NY Daily News ... 'Sierra Waters is sexy as hell' -Curled Up With A Good Book
science fiction (writing and reading, TV and movies), songwriting, singing harmony, publishing, gardening, long walks on shores and city streets and forest paths, nature, butterflies, good food (especially seafood, but cherry pie and concord grapes are way up there, too), Cape Cod, Pennsylvania Amish, traveling by trains (driving and flying have their advantages, but I love trains), the First Amendment, freedom of speech and press, prehistoric and ancient history, voyages to the New World before Columbus, space travel, time travel, travelling to London, philosophy, logical paradoxes, Impressionism (painting, music, poetry), art nouveau, art deco, evolution, family
Kindle Editions of most of my short stories, novels, and nonficton
Music
Reviews of Twice Upon a Rhyme on Rate My Music ... with reviews like this, "its a cool LP, and definitely addictive, 'relics of summer psychedelics, an ever dwindling splinter, browse around, while the world dies down...' think lush green osmosis into a hazy glen campfire as the night flashes on the glimmering trees and warm air. butterflies and summer loves and long walks on dirt roads"... Listen to some of the music here, on my MySpace music page ...
my favorites and influences:
Beatles, Stones, Motown, Beachboys, Lovin' Spoonful, Moody Blues, Eagles, BeeGees, The Who, The Guess Who, The Wonder Who, Kinks, Seekers, Manfred Mann, 1950s doo-wap, Kingston Trio, Highwaymen, Debussy, Dvorak, Benny Goodman, Grieg, Dylan, Phil Ochs, Simon and Garfunkel, Donovan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, The Left Banke (Pretty Ballerina), Tom Lehrer, Rogers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Louis Prima, Sinatra, Springsteen, Dave Brubeck, Mr. Scruff, Crispian St. Peter, Roger Miller, Henry Gross, Todd Rundgren, ABBA, Desmond Dekker, Shaggy, Bob Seger, Dire Straits, U2, ZZ Top, Blondie, Doors (mainly LA Woman), Roy Orbison, Elvis (Don't, Return to Sender, Viva Las Vegas), Electric Light Orchestra, Starland Vocal Band, K. C. and the Sunshine Band, REM, Super Tramp, Foreigner, Soft Cell, Impressions, Lou Rawls, Sam Cooke, Phil Collins, Sheryl Crow, Hootie and the Blowfish, Eddie and the Cruisers, Katrina and the Waves, Chrissy Hind and the Pretenders, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, Driveshaft, Weird Al Yankovic, The Travelin' Wilburys, The New Outlook (aka The Other Voices), Haddaway, Thom Yorke, Coldplay, James Blunt, Dido, Gnarls Barkley, Sixpence None the Richer, Natalie Merchant, Natalie Imbruglia, Amy Winehouse
.. James Harris covers my "Looking for Sunsets (in the Early Morning)"
best hip-hop soul by a world-class actor that I've come across on MySpace: Idris - as in, Idris Elba, aka Stringer Bell from The Wire - check it
current favorite worst commercial jingle: "Fitness Made Simple" (for John Basedow, the new Chuck Norris), runner-up: "Campbell's Tomato Soup Possibilities" (from a few years ago - may be the most grating voice in human history)
.. powered by ODEO for Tina - Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie!
special, eternal mention: Joan Baez singing Bob Dylan's With God On Our Side...
Movies
all-time favorites: The Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Godfather trilogy, Reservoir Dogs, Star Wars (all 6), Gone with the Wind, The Big Easy, Tombstone, Witness, Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Bodyguard, True Romance, Blue Velvet, Being John Malkovich, Moulin Rouge, Memento, Back to the Future trilogy, Gattaca, Frequency, Lord of the Rings trilogy, first 3 James Bonds, most Hitchcock, Trancers series!
recent favorites seen in the past few years: Girl in the Cafe, Fall, The Aristocrats, Deja Vu
favorite movies about music: The Benny Goodman Story, Eddie and the Cruisers, Delovely, Once
Television
current: Lost, 24, FlashForward, Bones, House, Heroes, Journeyman, Mad Men, Californication, The Tudors, Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, In Treatment, Brotherhood, Big Love, Curb Your Enthusiasm [see my reviews of those shows at Infinite Regress TV]
..
recent: The Sopranos, The Wire, Alias, Da Ali G Show
upcoming: The Genesis Virus ... time travel, as you've never seen it before...
classic: Howdy Doody Show, Captain Video and His Video Rangers, Dragnet, Rawhide, Have Gun Will Travel, What's My Line?, Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Star Trek, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Coronet Blue, The Starlost, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Invaders, The Fugitive, The Prisoner, Roots, Dallas, V, I Claudius, Poldark, Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, MacGyver, Unsolved Mysteries, Star Trek: The Next Generation, LA Law, Seinfeld, Six Feet Under, NYPD Blue, Ken Burns' Civil War, Jazz, and Baseball PBS documentaries, just about any rock 'n' roll or folk concert on PBS
subscribe to my free weekly 4-minute podcast about Lost on your cell phone... 415 223 4124
The Foundation and robot (especially The Naked Sun) series (both of them, Asimov), The End of Eternity (Asimov), The Door Into Summer (Heinlein), Dune & Dune Messiah (Herbert), The Fermata (Baker), Time and Again (Finney), The Illustrated Man (Bradbury), The Trial of Socrates (Stone), Understanding Media and The Gutenberg Galaxy (McLuhan), Freedom of Speech in the United States (Tedford), Escape from Freedom (Fromm), The Open Society and its Enemies and Objective Knowledge (Popper), Plagues and Peoples and The Pursuit of Power (McNeill), Viking America (Enterline), The Gnostic Gospels (Pagels), Hitchcock (Truffaut), Red Moon (Michaels), Encyclopaedia Britannica (1954 edition), Phaedrus (Plato), Medical Detectives (Roueche), Harry Potter (all of 'em, Rowling)
favorite short story: "Flowers for Algernon" (Daniel Keyes)
Thomas Jefferson, Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Hero of Alexandria, Hypatia, Coleridge, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Orson Welles, R. Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, Julian Jaynes, Karl Popper, Bertrand Russell, Andy Kaufman, Stephen Wright, George Carlin, Chris Rock, Jim Bouton, Ellie Greenwich, Carl Sagan, Sylvia Engdahl, I. F. Stone, James Wechsler, Eugene McCarthy, John Lindsay, John F. Kennedy...
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.
or get it on your phone, any time 415-223-4122 ... talking about new tech, popular culture, tv, movies, cars, food, lifestyles, science fiction, politics...
I'm proud to be on the May 8 page of this calendar, with the following quote: "What begins as a seemingly innocent campaign against indecency . . . always segues in short order into political censorship."
I'm author of five science fiction novels - the latest is The Plot to Save Socrates, now in inexpensive trade paperback, click on the title to learn more, message me to find out how you can purchase an autographed copy at no additional expense!
from the dust jacket: In the year 2042, Sierra, a young graduate student, is shown a new dialog of Socrates, recently discovered, in which a time traveler tries to argue that Socrates might escape death by use of a clone and travel to the future. Thomas, the elderly scholar who has shown her the document, disappears, and Sierra immediately begins to track down the origins of the manuscript, with the help of her classical scholar boyfriend, Max. The trail leads her to time machines in the Millennium Club in New York and the Parthenon Club in London, into the past and into the future. Complications, mysteries, travels, and time loops grow as Sierra tries to discover who is planning to save the greatest philosopher in human history, or do so herself. Historical characters who make appearances include not only Socrates, but Plato, Alcibiades, Benjamin Jowett, William Henry Appleton - the great 19th century American publisher - and the ancient inventor Heron of Alexandria.
Praise for THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES
"challenging fun"--Entertainment Weekly
"Da Vinci-esque thriller"--New York Daily News
"a fun book to read"--Dallas Morning News
"Levinson spins a fascinating tale ... An intriguing premise with believable characters and attention to period detail make this an outstanding choice for most science fiction collections. 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
"intricately and intriguingly woven, lots of fun, and extremely thought provoking."--Stanley Schmidt
"This is a dazzling performance. . . .History as science fiction; science fiction as history."--Barry N. Malzberg
"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
"proves that excellent entertainment can and ought to be intellectually respectable--a glorious example to us all."--Brian Stableford
"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 recommened read."--Matt St. Amand
"quick-to-read, entertaining treatment of the problems inherent in time travel with style and flair"--Booklist
"readers are sure to enjoy his take on the paradoxes of time travel"--BookPage
"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."--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
"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
"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
"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 at strangehorizons.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
"revels in the possibilities for paradoxes . . . . fresh and welcome. . . ." --Steven Silver's Reviews at www.sfsite.com/~silverag
"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 thinking person's time travel story... I felt like I was there."--John DeNardo, SF Signal
"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
"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
"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
first part of the sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates - Unburning Alexandria - published in Analog: The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy November 2008...
Jean-Baptiste Régnault, 1785,
Socrates dragging Alcibiades from the Embrace of S.
Other novels include The Silk Code (1999), The Consciousness Plague (2002), and The Pixel Eye (2003) -- all three featuring the exploits of NYPD forensic detective Dr. Phil D'Amato (which began with a shorter piece, "The Chronology Protection Case", published in Analog Magazine in 1995) -- and Borrowed Tides (2001).
Awards: The Silk Code won the Locus Award for best first science fiction novel of 1999; short fiction nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards
Film: low-budget movie of "The Chronology Protection Case"(my award-nominated novelette) made by Jay Kensinger in 2002.
Audiobooks: radio-play of novelette "The Chronology Protection Case" (2005), and novels The Consciousness Plague (2005), and The Plot to Save Socrates (2006)
- all narrated by Mark Shanahan.
and here's a trailer for Jay Kensinger's 2002 movie of my novelette The Chronology Protection Case!..
....
I've been an avid reader and viewer of science fiction all of my life, and was President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), 1998-2001.
I'm also author of lots of other short stories - about 20 now available on www.fictionwise.com, including "Albert's Cradle,"
my first professionally published short story, appearing in Amazing Stories in 1993, and many other stories originally published in Analog Magazine in the 1990s, including "The Way of Flesh," "The Chronology Protection Case,"
"The Copyright Notice Case," "The Mendelian Lamp Case," "Loose Ends," "Little Differences," "Late Lessons,""The Orchard," "The Suspended Fourth," "Advantage Bellarmine," and "The Man Who Brought Down The New York Times"
I'm on TV and radio at least 3-4 times a month, and was interviewed every Sunday morning on KNX 1070 all-news radio out of Southern California, July 2006 - January 2008 ... click here for complete complete list of interviews.
IMDb.com details are under Paul Levinson (I). I'm also interviewed a few times a month by AP, Reuters, The New York Post, The New York Times, Newsday, The New York Daily News, USA Today, etc. about various media issues of the day.
Here's a video of my January 23, 2004 appearance on O'Reilly - I'm defending the right of Youngstown, Ohio TV news anchor Catherine Bosley to keep her job, after she had been videotaped, naked, in a wet t-shirt contest in Florida. . .
And here's a video of me on the Discovery Channel - December 2006 - talking about the cell phone
And here's a 20-minute interview with me about The Future of Media - on The Alcove, November 2007
More videoclips of my conversations and debates with Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Ventura, Ray Suarez, Joe Scarborough, Brent Bozell, Kelly Wallace, and other players are on YouTube -enjoy!
When I'm not writing or talking to the media, I teach at Fordham University - where I'm Professor of Communication and Media Studies.
Here am I making five profound points, simultaneously, at a lecture I gave at Fordham University's Lincoln Center Campus in September 2006.
I like to garden, love grape juice, tea (green, white) and Cape Cod, where we vacation every summer. I collect old postcards, tradecards, old books, and antique pens. I'm happily married, with two kids who are now adults and both real winners. My top two current favorite TV shows are Lost and 24.
I'm a songwriter - one of my songs, "Hung Up On Love" (co-written with Mikie Harris) was recorded by my group, The Other Voices (consisting of Stu Nitekman, Ira Margolis, and me), produced by Ellie Greenwich and Mike Rashkow, and released on Atlantic Records in 1968 - it was reissued on Rhino Handmade's "Come to the Sunshine" compilation CD in 2004. I've recently reunited with Stu and Ira (we originally were called The New Outlook), and we're converting our old records into MP3s. I started a record company - HappySad Records - in 1972, and released one album, "Twice Upon A Rhyme" (recently talked about a lot in Japan -it's Beatles circa Rubber Soul, maybe a little more psychedelic with some folk and pop mixed in) and a bunch of singles. Four of our songs and details about lots of this are on my music page here at myspace - myspace.com/paullevinsonthenewoutlook and blog.myspace.com/paullevinsonthenewoutlook.
copies of original 1972 Twice Upon a Rhyme available here
featured radio interviews: Patrick Rands interviewed me for an hour on June 30, 2006, about my music, with 14 songs I wrote or recorded ...You can listen to it right here .. powered by ODEO
featured podcast interviews: Jason Rennie interviewed me on December 16, 2006 about science fiction and philosophy on The SciPhi Show .. and again on March 10, 2008 on The SciPhi Show about Robert Heinlein and Barack Obama ... Shaun Farrell interviewed me on March 28, 2007 about science fiction and the academic world on Adventures in Scifi Publishing ... Stephen Euin Cobb interviewed me on February 6, 2008 about nanotechnology, SETI, the Fermi Paradox, the probability and impact of our finding another Earth, and more on The Future and You ... Maia Whitaker interviewed me on Feburary 26, 2008 about how to promote your writing on the Web, plus we talked a little about Barack Obama on The Knitwitch Zone ... Barna Donovan and Ernabel Demillo interviewed me on March 26, 2009 about "sexting," the First Amendment, more on Culture Wars ... Joy Cardin interviewed me on May 1, 2009 about the impact of Twitter, on Wisconsin Public Radio ... The Gypsy Poet (Sophia) interviewed me on May 17, 2009 about The Plot to Save Socrates, New New Media, the First Amendment and more on BlogTalkRadio ...
and check out my occasional podcast - Light On Light Through - also available on iTunes ... 15-20-minute takes on new tech, popular culture, tv, movies, science fiction, the First Amendment, the works...
Light On Light Through podcast playing in Second Life
a few all-time favorite quotes:
"the only people who have proof of their sanity are those who have been discharged from mental institutions" -- Marshall McLuhan
"rain, I don't mind" -- John Lennon
"success is an enemy to the losers of the day" -- Phil Ochs
"darkness washed over the Dude - darker than a black steer's toochas on a moonless prairie night" -- The Big Lebowski
"a college education I would never propose/a bachelor's degree won't even keep you in clothes" -- Cole Porter
"better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n" -- John Milton
"when the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, Sir?" -- John Maynard Keynes
"the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence" -- Louis Brandeis
More details on all of this and much more, including transcripts of some of my O'Reilly Factor and other TV interviews, excerpts from reviews of my books, and three other (free) MP3s, are on my main web page: www.sff.net/people/paullevinson
Who I'd like to meet: anyone interested in science fiction, making movies from novels and short stories, 1960s music (actually, any kind of music), songwriting (I usually write lyrics, sometimes both lyrics and music), social media, record producing, selling music from the 1960s and 70s, philosophy, space travel, Cape Cod
As a winter present for everyone, I'm offering a free novella on my website.
A Happily Ever After of Her Own
Melinda Lightfoot, a preschool teacher with an unusual ability to flit in and out of fairy tales, never thought she would get into trouble...
...until the Fairy Tale Police arrest her while she is in Beauty and the Beast. They offer her a deal: Find Beauty, who left the story when Melinda trespassed into it, or be charged with the ultimate crime -- Fairy Tale Killer. If that's not bad enough the Beast tags along in search of his true love, and Melinda starts falling for the fairy tale prince. She must choose between doing the right thing and having her own happily ever after.
CATSELF is taking part in a contest organized by SEAT, if she wins she will get 1000 dollars added to her Sellaband funds. Please vote for her http://www.seat-world.com/#/coverflow_audio/music_52_freetracks Scroll right to find her, then click the STEM button on the lower right corner and give 5 stars. They count votes every day, so if you can go back and vote every day for a month it would be great. Let's get her to the top!!
Thought to drop in and show you some love on your page! It is the end of the semester! And for the first time, I didn't want it to end! Thanks so much for being a part of my world and I hope the Holiday Season is a reflection of how wonderful you are... Many HUGS- Sophia- (The Gypsy Poet) :)
“The writer William Burroughs once called language “a virus from outer space”, and there’s a sense of that in A History of Sarcasm, where Burton holds words up to the sun and lets the light shine through them.”
Lights Resolve's song "Dreaming of Love" available on Rock Band for download on XBox 360 tomorrow Dec 8th and PlayStation 3 on Dec 10th. Go check it out!! -Matt, Luke and Neal
THANX FOR BEING A FRIEND OF CRISS KARVER AND THE LUNACY MACHINE. ALSO, WANTED TO WISH YOU A FABULOUS DARK AND TWISTED WEEK!!! HOPE THE HOLIDAYS ARE GOOD TO YOU! IF YOU'RE UP TO SOME NEW TWISTED TALES IN RHYME, STOP BY AND CHECK OUT MY BLOG: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=124955625
-TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK AND LOOK FOR THE LUNACY MACHINE TO HIT THE BOOK SHELVES SOON!
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Online Now!
