Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code, The Plot To Save Socrates, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (698/0)
Review of 'The Singer Sisters'
There's a meta-genre of fiction epitomized in different but overlapping ways by Eddie and the Cruisers, Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap, and Daisy Jones and the Six -- the first and the third adapted to the screen from novels -- that helps us understand what those who make music that lights up our nights are doing, feeling, and thinking when they're off-stage and not in the studio. Sarah Seltzer's The Singer Singers, a debut novel to be published this August, not only fits well in that narrative family, but in some ways exceeds it. I'd expect to see it adapted on some kind of screen before too long.
By Paul Levinsona day ago in Beat
Review of 'Constellation'
I've read and seen many alternate reality stories. Some are caused by quantum entanglement -- the mega version of two subatomic particles colliding and then moving in opposite directions but still intimately and instantly connected -- and some just happen or are already there. I just reviewed a movie here on Vocal with that schema, and have written a few double realities stories and a novel with that premise myself. But none explore the existence and impact of that on families the way that Constellation does. Indeed, none do much of that at all in the at once deep and startling way that this new series on Apple TV+ does.
By Paul Levinson22 days ago in Futurism
Review of 'Quantum Suicide'
Gerrit Van Woudenberg's Quantum Suicide movie (which he wrote, directed, and -- with Shane Morgan - co-produced) won the Best Sci-Fi Dramatic Feature award at the Philip K. Dick Film Festival last week in New York City. I was at the Festival, and moderated a panel with Van Woudenberg, but I had another appointment when the movie was shown at the Festival. Van Woudenberg (who directed a few short films a decade ago) was good enough to give me the URL for a screener, which I just saw and greatly enjoyed. Herewith a non-spoiler review.
By Paul Levinson24 days ago in Futurism
Review of '3 Body Problem' Season One
I haven't read the novel by Liu Cixin and its sequels, and I didn't read much about the series because I wanted to be surprised. I'd say the first season of 3 Body Problem was superb -- a powerful mix of thought-provoking, stunning action, and heartbreaking human stories, all in support of a story of a life-threatening interstellar intelligent species, the San-Ti, who have been in contact with our planet for more than 50 years and now are approaching us, some 400 years away from arriving, which may mean the end of our species. And there was a wise and funny joke about Einstein and God which I hadn't heard before.
By Paul Levinsonabout a month ago in Geeks
Review of 'True Detective' 4.1-4.3
True Detective is back with its fourth season. So far, as of the first three episodes, it's quite good. Not as brilliant as the first season, which was a masterpiece, but at least as good as the second and third seasons, each in their own way memorable. And this fourth season has something which is always especially appealing to me, a touch of science fiction.
By Paul Levinson3 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'For All Mankind' 4.9-4.10
"Without competition, there is no progress," Sergei says to Margot and Aleina, near the beginning of Episode 4.9 of For All Mankind, on Apple TV+. Later, he suggests that he and Margot leave the US and go to Brazil, which already has started an impressive space program (a nice alternate history touch). And ...
By Paul Levinson4 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Who Killed JFK' Episodes 9-10
Episode 9 of the Who Killed JFK? podcast with Rob Reiner and Soledad O'Brien is devoted to Jack Ruby (born Jacob Rubenstein), the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television two days after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
By Paul Levinson4 months ago in Criminal
Tetrads for History and Alternate History
Marshall McLuhan's tetrad is a useful tool for discovering and understanding how human activities, especially media, are connected to one another. It maps a four-part relationship that happens in any human endeavor. That activity AMPLIFIES or ENHANCES an aspect or certain aspects of human life; as it does this, it OBSOLESCES an activity that had previously been amplified; and the human endeavor also RETRIEVES an activity that had previously been obsolesced or pushed off center stage; and the amplified activity REVERSES or FLIPS INTO a new activity, at once very different from but closely related to what was amplified.
By Paul Levinson4 months ago in History
