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 (697/0)
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
Review of Tobias Cabral's 'New Eyes'
Tobias Cabral picked a good time to send me his 2018 novel New Eyes for review. Mars is in the air. Actually, it's always been in the air, or at least, at the top of the air, in the sky. But NASA's Perseverance is on its way to Mars, with a landing date in February of next year. Elon Musk wants to colonize the Red Planet (I'm 100% on board, here's a talk I gave at the 19th Annual International Mars Society Convention at The Catholic University in Washington, DC on 23 September 2016):
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Amazing Stories (2020)' 1.2: The Heat
Life after death stories -- the departed coming back to help, haunt, or otherwise interact with the living -- are a dime a dozen. Amazing Stories' (2020) second episode, "The Heat," manages to visit this well-trodden path with a story that is at least somewhat original, even if that originality relies upon yet another very well-worn gambit in fiction.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
review of 'Away'
My wife and I just finished binge-watching Away, a 10-episode series, on Netflix. I can't recall a better movie or television series about missions to Mars or early human settlements on Mars, and that includes contenders like The Martian, The Martian Chronicles, and Total Recall.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.2-3
I just watched Raised by Wolves 1.2 and 1.3, on HBO Max. It's all that is available there now (along with the first episode that I saw and reviewed here the other night), but the three are more than enough to convince that this will be a major science fiction series, with a complex, multi-level, intriguing narrative.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Anne Reburn and Her Clones
No, this is not a review of a new science movie I just caught on Netflix, though it could have been, a few years ago, before the explosion in video technology and savvy which has created on whole new genre of music video now lighting up YouTube. Covers have been a staple of YouTube since it came into our lives in 2006, but now they're being done, of Beatles and Beachboy songs and records by slightly lesser known artists, by just one person, singing all the parts and sometimes even playing all the instruments. They're all always fun to see and listen to, but Anne Reburn's, with what she refers to as her "clones," are in a class by themselves. The handful that I've seen so far are just fabulous, on all kinds of levels.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Beat
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.1
I saw Raised by Wolves 1.1 last night, courtesy of HBO Max, where the series is set to debut tomorrow, September 3. In a sentence, it's a big concept, altogether excellent combination of fast action and deep philosophy, as befits Executive Producer Ridley Scott, and especially well-suited to our pandemic ridden time, when the very fate of humanity could well be at stake if things get much worse.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Lovecraft Country' 1.3
It should be apparent by now that Lovecraft Country is an anthology of separate stories set on a foundation of a continuing underlying story, rather than just a straightforward continuing story. This has the effect of making the underlying story more difficult to follow, but allowing the series to explore a lot more than one classic horror trope.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Horror
Review of 'We Hunt Together' 1.3
We learned a lot about our major quarter of characters in We Hunt Together 1.3 on Showtime last Sunday night. Baba doesn't like to kill. In fact, he wants to recapture some of the small boy that he was in Africa, before being a child soldier claimed his body and a lot of his soul, and turned in him into a killer. Freddie says she wants to help him in that quest, but of course she lies about just about everything.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Criminal