Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code & The Plot To Save Socrates; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Best-known short story: The Chronology Protection Case; Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (696/0)
Review of 'Utopia'
Just what we needed, right? A series about a virus that's spreading quickly from city to city -- and killing children no less? And the plot hinges on a hyped vaccine that may not be effective at all? So, yeah, Utopia on Amazon Prime is all of that and more, and at the worst possible time. But maybe at the best possible time, because I found first season of this series really enjoyable and binge-watched all eight of its episodes yesterday.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.8-10
The story brought vividly home in Raised by Wolves 1.8 and 1.9, that androids can bear biological children, a hybrid of some sort of android and human, lifts this series into territory not even explored in a series as sophisticated as Westworld. Of course, Westworld takes place on Earth, with a science a lot earlier in its development than what we see in Raised by Wolves, so I'm not criticizing Westworld on this account as much as noting the difference. And that difference is about as profound as it gets.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Biden vs. Trump Presidential Debate #1
Donald Trump, who has destroyed or impaired so much of what we cherish and deem important in America, took his pickaxe to the First 2020 Presidential debate tonight, interrupting Joe Biden almost every time he spoke. And though Chris Wallace weakly protested this disruption many times, he failed to stop Trump's rampage. Wallace should have cut off Trump's microphone, or requested the audio engineer to do that.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in The Swamp
John G. McDaid: Found in Translation
Let me introduce you to John G. McDaid. He was my student in the MA in Media Studies Program at the New School for Social Research in New York City in the early 1980s. I was delighted when his first professionally published science fiction story "Jigoku No Mokushiroku" (in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine) won the Sturgeon Award in 1995, right around the time one of my first published stories, "The Chronology Protection Case," in Asimov's older sister magazine, Analog, was nominated for the Nebula Award. I was pleased when I began to see John start showing up in Media Ecology Association conferences about a decade later, singing a variety of catchy songs.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Beat
Review of 'The Platform'
Parables come in all kinds of platforms. The Platform, a Spanish film with English subtitles now on Netflix, is a story about the essence of humanity tested to its very limits. That’s a worthy parable, to say the least. Unfortunately, this movie’s unique way of telling it is disgusting, in the literal sense of that word. The question is: was that kind of stomach-turning story necessary to convey such a crucial message?
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Into the Night'
In the old days, they used to have something called B-movies. They were intended to accompany the A-movie, the main attraction, in the double features that played in neighborhood movie houses, before television came along and ate their lunch and closed them down. Many of those B-movies were quite enjoyable, but they weren’t exactly Oscar material. I don’t think there were any B-television shows, certainly none on cable and none on Netflix, Amazon video, and other streaming services. But if ever there were a streaming television series that felt like a B-movie – in this case, a six-episode movie serial – it would be Into the Night, which went up on Netflix in May 2020.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.6-7
Lots of important, even game-changing events in episodes 1.6-7 of Raised by Wolves, up on HBO Max Thursday night: Campion and Paul are becoming rivals, even though it looks as if they'll still ultimately have each other's backs in life and death situations. But other than that, Campion is representing spirit and Paul logic and science, which is interesting in itself since Campion comes from the atheists and Paul the true-believers. This may be a significant indicator of the future and the changing roles of central characters on this planet.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.4-5
I thought the 4th and 5th episodes of Raised by Wolves were really good, especially the 5th, because it gave us a nice big origin story about Mother -- how she was created, and endowed/programmed with her mission. Her maker tells her she's humanity's last hope, a nod to Star Wars mythology.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Seven Books about Trump
I often say to my students, when we talk about which is the most powerful, predominating medium in our political world, that you shouldn't count older media out. Trump made Twitter his medium, because he had a talent for the short, vehement missive, and it allowed him to communicate directly to his followers, without the intervention of the press (Hitler loved radio and its affordance of direct broadcasts from him for the same reason).
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in The Swamp