 | |
| Author | Paul Levinson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Philosophical Science Fiction |
| Publisher | Tor Books, New York City |
Publication date | Feb 2006/Feb 2007 |
| Pages | 266 |
| ISBN | 0-7653-0570-4 (hardcover); ISBN 0-7653-1197-6 (trade paper) |
| OCLC | 61879799 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3562.E92165 P58 2006 |
The Plot to Save Socrates is a time travel novel by Paul Levinson, first published in 2006. Starting in the near future, the novel also has scenes set in the ancient world and Victorian New York.
The Plot to Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). In particular, the characters are trapped in endless time loops, effectively deprived of free will and having no choice but to take an action which - due to time travel - they already know they have taken.
The story begins in Athens, Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras).
Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person named Andros offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind.
The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that not only is Heron a time traveler himself (from a future later than hers) but is a suspicious and ruthless character. Later on she would encounter the renowned Athenian general Alcibiades, help save his life at the time when history records his death in 404 BC, become his lover and fall deeply in love with him, and help set him on a very extensive and fruitful later long life which would remain unknown to historians.
Together with various fictional characters, the story also involves Plato, and of course Socrates - who only comes onstage in the last part - as well as the 19th Century publisher William Henry Appleton. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London.
At various points it is mentioned that Sierra Waters would eventually become the famous mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria. This theme is taken up in a sequel, Unburning Alexandria , of which the first two chapters were published as a standalone novelette in the November 2008 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact . [1] [2] The full-length novel was published as a trade paperback and ebook in 2013, [3] followed by the next novel in the series, Chronica, in December 2014. [4] [5]
Publishers Weekly found it "light (and) engaging", but warned that because of the constant use of time travel, "the plot threatens to fracture". [6]
In Strange Horizons , Colin Harvey praised it as "delightfully old-fashioned", with a "cool, spare style" which he compared to that of Isaac Asimov; Harvey did, however, consider that the first half of the novel was "almost too bloodless", and overall noted its excessive infodumping, and characters who "accept the idea of time travel a little too readily" and show "too little fear". [7] SF Signal lauded the intricate plotting (wishing for "a time-map of the leap-frogging made by the [characters], just to [see] its carefully crafted structure"), but observed that this came at the cost of characterization, emphasizing that Heron's motivation seems unclear and contradictory, and that Sierra's relationship with Alcibiades "somehow seemed unjustified". [8]
The Plot to Save Socrates was edited by David G. Hartwell and published by Tor Books. The first edition appeared in February 2006, and went into its third printing in August 2006. A trade paperback edition was released on February 20, 2007; an ebook "author's cut" with an extended ending was released on December 11, 2012.
Hypatia was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy. Although preceded by Pandrosion, another Alexandrian female mathematician, she is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor. She wrote a commentary on Diophantus's thirteen-volume Arithmetica, which may survive in part, having been interpolated into Diophantus's original text, and another commentary on Apollonius of Perga's treatise on conic sections, which has not survived. Many modern scholars also believe that Hypatia may have edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Almagest, based on the title of her father Theon's commentary on Book III of the Almagest.
Alcibiades was an Athenian statesman and general. The last of the Alcmaeonidae, he played a major role in the second half of the Peloponnesian War as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician, but subsequently fell from prominence.
The Symposium is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, dated c. 385 – 370 BC. It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable Athenian men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the general and statesman Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The panegyrics are to be given in praise of Eros, the god of love and sex.
A fictional book is a text created specifically for a work in an imaginary narrative that is referred to, depicted, or excerpted in a story, book, film, or other fictional work, and which exists only in one or more fictional works. A fictional book may be created to add realism or depth to a larger fictional work. For example, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four has excerpts from a book by Emmanuel Goldstein entitled The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism which provides background on concepts explored in the novel.
William Riley Burnett was an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for the crime novel Little Caesar, the film adaptation of which is considered the first of the classic American gangster movies.
Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, the Theogony and Works and Days, constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.
Konangi is the pen name of the Tamil writer Ilangovan. He is the maternal grandson of the Tamil playwright, lyricist, writer and Freedom fighter Madurakavi Baskaradoss. His father is the Tamil writer Shanmugam and his mother is Saraswathi. His elder brother is the Tamil short-story writer Tamilselvan and his younger brother is Murugaboopathy a contemporary Tamil playwright. He grew up in Naagalapuram, bodinayakanur and Nenmeni Mettupatti and he currently lives in Kovilpatti, Tamil Nadu.
Jess Nevins is an American author and research librarian best known for annotated guides and encyclopedias covering Victoriana, comic books, genre fiction and pulp fiction. Among Nevin's books are Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana,Horror Fiction in the 20th Century and Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. He has been a recipient and finalist for a number of honors, including the World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Locus Awards.
The Arrows of Hercules is an historical novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardback by Doubleday in 1965 and in paperback by Curtis Books in 1970. The book was reissued with a new introduction by Harry Turtledove as a trade paperback and ebook by Phoenix Pick in April 2014. It is the fourth of de Camp's historical novels in order of writing, and second chronologically, set in the time of Dionysios I of Syracuse at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th centuries BC.
Paul Levinson is an American media theorist, novelist, singer-songwriter, and short story writer. He currently serves as professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University in New York City. His novels, short fiction, and non-fiction works have been translated into sixteen languages. He is frequently quoted in news articles and appears as a guest commentator on major news outlets.
The prominent Athenian statesman Alcibiades has been criticized by ancient comic writers and appears in several Socratic dialogues. He enjoys an important afterlife, in literature and art, having acquired symbolic status as the personification of ambition and sexual profligacy. He also appears in several significant works of modern literature.
Keith Brooke is a British science fiction author, editor, web publisher and anthologist from Essex, England. He is the founder and editor of the infinity plus webzine. He also writes children's fiction under the name Nick Gifford.
Tides of War is a 2000 novel by Steven Pressfield, chronicling the Peloponnesian War.
The RCN Series is a sequence of stand-alone science fiction novels by David Drake. They center around Daniel Leary, an officer in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy (RCN), and Adele Mundy, a librarian and spy. Drake, as well as a number of reviewers, have described it as "an SF version of the Aubrey/Maturin series" by Patrick O'Brian. In contrast to the hardcore military science fiction bent of Drake's Hammer's Slammers series, these novels are more character-driven and feature political intrigue as well as battles.
Dr. Phil D’Amato is the central character in three science fiction mystery novelettes and three novels written by Paul Levinson. The first novelette, "The Chronology Protection Case", was adapted into a radio play which was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. The first novel, The Silk Code, won the Locus Award for the Best First Novel of 1999. The fictional D'Amato, who has a PhD in forensic science, is a detective with the NYPD.
Devil's Gate is an adventure novel in author Clive Cussler's The NUMA Files. Co-written with Graham Brown, this installment is the ninth of that series which features the main character Kurt Austin. The story follows employees of NUMA who discover someone is developing a directed-energy weapon and thwart the dictator of Sierra Leone, Djemma Garand, and the mercenary group led by Andras the Knife before they are able to use the weapon. The hardcover edition was released November 14, 2011, it was subsequently released as a paperback, audiobook and ebook. It appeared on several best-seller lists and was describe by reviewers as being suitable for fans of Cussler and action-adventure stories.
Shadow of Night is a 2012 historical-fantasy novel by American scholar Deborah Harkness, the second book in the All Souls trilogy. As the sequel to the 2011 bestseller, A Discovery of Witches, it follows the story of Diana Bishop, a historian who comes from a long line of witches, and Matthew Clairmont, a long-lived vampire, as they unlock the secrets of an ancient manuscript. Diana and Matthew travel back in time to 16th century London during the Elizabethan era.
Socrates on Trial is a play depicting the life and death of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. It tells the story of how Socrates was put on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens and for failing to honour the city's gods. The play contains adaptations of several classic Greek works: the slapstick comedy, Clouds, written by Aristophanes and first performed in 423 BCE; the dramatic monologue, Apology, written by Plato to record the defence speech Socrates gave at his trial; and Plato's Crito and Phaedo, two dialogues describing the events leading to Socrates’ execution in 399 BCE. The play was written by Andrew David Irvine of the University of British Columbia and premiered by director Joan Bryans of Vital Spark Theatre Company in 2007 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver.
This is a list of works by or about Paul Levinson, American author.
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