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 'Project Blue Book' 1.1
Project Blue Book, the docudrama on the History Channel about Dr. Allen Hynek and his research into UFOs, couldn't have come at a better time. I mean, a better time for me. I read and reviewed Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding, about John W. Campbell and the golden age of science fiction, And Hynek's story—at least, as it begins on Project Blue Book—begins in 1952, which many people, including me, would regard as the peak of that golden age. Asimov's Foundation trilogy, which had first been published as a series of stories in Astounding (the magazine), was smack dab in the middle of being published as three books. Robert Heinlein had just published, a year earlier, his Puppet Masters, to this day one the very best books about an extraterrestrial invasion... But I digress.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of Alec Nevala-Lee's 'Astounding'
One of the joys of reading on a Kindle (or, in my case, a Kindle app) is the ease of bookmarking. As one indication of how important, I found Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, and bookmarked it 10 times more than any other book I've read in the past few years. (The runner-ups are The Perversity of Things: Hugo Gernsback on Media, Tinkering, and Scientifiction by Grant Wythoff and Dreaming the Beatles by Rob Sheffield, though I read those two on paper.)
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'The Orville' 2.2
Porn addiction and planetary disintegration were not really connected in the excellent second episode of the second season of The Orville—that is, not at first, at least. By the end, they come together and make for a compelling and as always funny episode in this bizarro Star Trekian series.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Timeless' Finale
Well, the Timeless two-hour special was as good a finale as I've seen for any television series—which means, it was true to the series narrative, satisfying, intriguing, and provoking— like the best finales of any television series from The Fugitive to The Sopranos, though of course those now classic series are in a class far higher than Timeless. (I talked about this, what makes a great finale, a few years ago on PBS. Here's the three-minute video. A great finale, even a good finale, is tough to make.)
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Travelers' Season 3
The third season of Travelers would have been excellent anyway. MacLaren struggling against his own erased memory, the team dealing with a traveler who got into the body of a serial killer, the deadly chess match with the Faction, the unreliability of the director, members of the team grappling with all kinds of personal lethal crises—all of that with the customary repartee about our culture, as seen from the distant future, and true-to-life dialog like "You only ever wear a third of your wardrobe, anyway," (MacLaren's wife Kathryn to MacLaren; for me it's more like a 10th) made for a series of episodes as good as those in the first two seasons. But the ending of season three made for something very different, and lifted the series to a whole new level.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Bird Box'
I'm not usually a fan of post-apocalyptic horror -- I even gave up on The Walking Dead last year - but Bird Box on Netflix is something else. That is, it's post-apocalyptic horror alright, but done with such sensitivity and style as to be in a class by itself. It also doesn't hurt to see top talent like Sandra Bullock and John Malkovich on the screen, along with newer talent like Trevante Rhodes who does a fine job, too.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Outlander' 4.4
Another great episode of Outlander last night—4.4—in which Jamie and Claire come to terms with bears and the Cherokee, and then at the end, we learn something much worse, which apparently they won't be able to come to terms with at all.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism