Customer Reviews

The Plot to Save Socrates

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm not particularly attracted to time travel novels. Or to Greek philosophy and history. So deciding to read The Plot to Save Socrates was something of fortunate whim (yes, I do have whims on occasion). But what I feared might be a bit tedious turned out to be a fascinating volume with a story line that works on many levels, from philosophy to romance.

The basic plot is just what the title says. A missing Socratic dialogue is discovered that relates Socrates' last conversation. A conversation in which he is offered the opportunity to escape his impending doom and flee into the future. Offered the opportunity to participate in this adventure by Professor Thomas O'Leary, doctoral candidate Sierra Waters embarks on a complex journey that will have her following the tracks on an ancient (or modern) inventor, taking one of Socrates' best friends as a lover, and, eventually, joining in the effort to bring a reluctant Socrates to safe harbor.

At heart, this is a 'puzzle' story. Riding time traveling chairs across millennia, Waters and others crisscross each other; making sure that events happen in the right sequence, staging more than one hair's breadth escape, and generally muddying the waters. Only gradually does the real sequence of events emerge. This is often precisely why I don't like time travel novels - the artificial nature of the plot - but Paul Levinson displays the writing skills needed to keep this artificiality from overwhelming the real story.

What is the 'real' story? For each reader it will be something slightly different, but for me it is the insights into the nature of Socrates himself. This is a man who spurned democracy, was willing to chose death to make a point, and who greatly distrusted the written word. Levinson shows us a man whose inquisitive nature can gently turn any discussion into a dialogic investigation. A natural teacher whose ideas have had inconceivable influence on the next 2500 years. And he is an honest, principled man who is impossible to dislike. It amazed me to find that several passages in the book found immediate application in other exchanges. That's quite something for an innocuous, slim, science fiction story.

Levinson's style is sparse, frequently surfacing feelings and ideals with a few sure strokes. Romance, suspense, and the theater of thought are the settings for a writer to display considerable breadth. You may find Levinson's character development quirky, but keep in mind that we meet many characters in out-of-order time slices, which are only blended together as the tale comes to its delightful, quixotic ending. This turned out to be surprisingly good reading and I heartily recommend it.

In 2042 Classics Professor Thomas O'Leary shows Manhattan's Old School doctorate candidate Sierra Waters a recently discovered fragment of a Socrates Dialogue. Sierra is stunned when the great philosopher discusses an opportunity offered by a visitor Andros to his prison to escape his impending state sponsored death by traveling in time. After discussing the Dialogue with her boyfriend Max, Sierra talks to her faculty advisor who says he is going to a Wilmington hospital for an operation on an aneurysm near his heart and that he trusts Sierra to do the right thing when it comes to Socrates.

Sierra and Max soon investigate the reality of time travel not just the theories and learn of a machine in London. There they begin a journey through time to several BCE eras, the nineteenth century and two decades into their future in an attempt to persuade Socrates to escape imminent death by hemlock. However the great philosopher has other plans for the leadership of Athens even while Sierra is attracted to the "enemy" and there is no guarantee that the two graduate students will return to their doctorate present.

THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES is a fun lighthearted time travel romp that in some ways will remind the audience of Bill and Ted though Sierra and Max are a lot more intelligent than the latter two. The story line is fast-paced as the twenty-first century travelers move back and forth in time with several intriguing surprises to include meeting real historical figures and a terrific final spin. Paul Levinson provides a strong science fiction thriller in which readers will have all the time in the world to join the quest to save Socrates.

Harriet Klausner

What if Socrates didn't really die and was offered an escape from his infamous death by hemlock poisoning? Paul Levinson asks just such a question in this fascinating time travel....

Doctoral student Sierra Waters isn't sure what to make of the dialogue between Socrates and Andros on the newly discovered manuscript fragment. Why is Thomas O'Leary, a member of her dissertation committee, giving it to her now? Even more bizarre is his sudden disappearance, a disappearance that sets Sierra off on an incredible journey. Time travel suddenly seems real as Sierra attempts to unravel the mystery behind the fragment in this epic adventure.

History comes to life in this fun and thought provoking tale! Socrates has always seemed a rather dour and dull figure to me but Paul Levinson breathes new life into this time. I must admit that I'm very unfamiliar with the plethora of historical figures who make an appearance in this tale, but it added another layer of intrigue as I spent almost as much time researching them as I did listening to the audio book! The print version of this tale has a very helpful appendix with notes about the various characters who appear.

The twists and turns make this story interesting as we wait to see how this tale will ultimately unfold. I'm not sure if true fans of the time period of Socrates and Alcibiades will appreciate this story nearly as much as those of us with only the barest of knowledge as Paul Levinson definitely takes some poetic license in the unveiling of THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES.

Narrator Mark Shanahan does a fabulous job at providing different voices. This is particularly helpful as THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES shifts perspectives quite a bit. At one point, I was close to giving up on the story in total confusion when the various story pieces suddenly clicked together. Once that happened, I was hooked! THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES is the sort of tale you want to savor each detail as all begins to come together in one very devious plot!

COURTESY OF CK2S KWIPS AND KRITIQUES

Several previous reviews have hit this right on the head. The book starts with great promise (interesting premise, nice mix of historical and philosophical detail, some nifty plot twists) but still ends up being somewhat unsatisfying. Initially, the pace of the book is decent, but the characters feel flat. The last couple chapters of the book seems rushed and forced as if the author lost interest and decided to tie everything up as quickly as possible. I'd still classify it as a worthwhile read, mainly due to the strength of the first half of the book.

Near the end of _The Plot to Save Socrates_, one of the protagonists says to the villain: "We want the same thing as you--we want Socrates to live. Why are we fighting?"

Damn good question! The villain doesn't answer it. I can't answer it either. It simply makes no sense. The book is not without redeeming features, but it doesn't really have a story, and that kills it.

It was bad enough when I wasn't sure why everyone was so het up about saving Socrates in the first place. When even the characters in the book have no clue what the book's main conflict is about, though, you've got an unfixable problem. It's not just that the villain is motiveless--there's literally no imaginable reason for the protagonists to oppose him, or vice versa, at all.

Even the manner of his opposition is unexciting and uninvolving. Every couple of chapters a couple of "highly-trained martial arts specialist" henchmen show up and attack the heroes. The heroes, none of whom is a highly-trained martial arts specialist, dispatch the henchmen and go about their business.

Nor are those heroes themselves terribly engaging. The characterization is just about non-existent. If I had to pick an adjective to describe Sierra Waters, the main protagonist, I'd pick "female." That's about the only impression I have of her. The other characters--with the exception of Alcibiades--are just as dimensionless.

And when they do finally save Socrates, it turns out that it was all useless. And the "villain" has known all along that it was useless!

What about those redeeming features I mentioned earlier?

First, the philosophy bits are excellent. I'd have liked to have seen a lot more philosophising, in fact, and had it worked more strongly into the main action of the book.

Second, the book does a great job with a time-travel structure. A lot of writers shrink from the strange loops and causality inversions and my-past-is-your-future scenes that time travel necessarily implies. Levinson not only doesn't shrink from them, he embraces them--and wraps them up tightly, so they all make a kind of sense. And he does it in a way that's appropriate to the subject, presenting his chapters in a non-linear but logical fashion that's both challenging and evocative.

Nonetheless: there's no story. The obstacles that the protagonists face are not credible and not urgent. You can't do that.

I love a good time traveling story, and this one has the added bonus of being a mystery, an adventure, and a Platonic dialogue all wrapped in one. My only complaint would be that some characters' motivations are unclear; the book seems to beg a sequel to explain these loose ends. Or maybe I just couldn't wrap my head around it. At any rate, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in time travel or philosophy. I also recommend reading it in one sitting (quite possible), to have the best chance of keeping the characters, times, and plots in good order in your own mind.

THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES

There's an old saying, "If you love Greek history and you're fascinated by time travel, you'll love Paul Levinson's The Plot To Save Socrates. If you're reading this in 2009, you'll likely disagree that it's an old saying, but if you time travel to 2061, you'll find that it's true.

Paul Levinson's delightful sci-fi book opens in New York in 2042. Sierra Waters, a student of the classics who is working on her dissertation, comes across a newly discovered dialog of Socrates. In it, an unidentified time traveler tries to convince Socrates to escape his death sentence by letting a cloned double drink hemlock while Socrates travels to the future.

As the characters time travel to different periods in the past and the future, the reader cannot help but be absorbed in not only the engaging plot, but also by the myriad questions that time travel raises. I think we all can relate to even the smallest incidents in our own lives that have profoundly changed the course of our personal history. In that sense, The Plot To Save Socrates really challenges our minds as we're led to contemplate how even the smallest adjustments in history could literally change its course.

Though written in a lighthearted style, the depth of research and thought that Paul Levinson put into the writing is clear and the result is truly a thought-provoking, breathtaking, and highly entertaining novel.

The Plot to Save Socrates (2006) is a standalone SF novel. A previously unknown dialog with Socrates is apparently found within a dig in Egypt a few years in the future. This dialog between Andros -- an unknown person from the future -- and Socrates involves the substitution of a mindless clone for Socrates before he drinks the hemlock. As in the dialog with Crito, Socrates refuses even this high tech solution.

In this novel, in New York City circa 2042, Thomas O'Leary provides his doctoral student, Sierra Waters, with a partial copy of this recently rediscovered dialog. She reads it several times and discusses it with her boy friend. Finally, she turns to her mentor for some answers and Thomas cannot be found.

Sierra was told that this copy was found misfiled in the library of the Millennium Club and wrangles an invitation to discuss it with the club librarian. Although she cannot find Cyril Charles, another librarian confirms the existence of the document and the efforts to date the ink and parchment. He also provides her access to another fragment of the new dialog. Then Sierra finds a report on the web of the death of O'Leary and two other men in a boat on the Aegean.

Sierra and her boy friend fly to London to follow up a lead and meet William Henry Appleton, who provides them with access to the timetravel chairs in the Parthenon Club. Sierra and Max travel back to Brittania in 150 AD. There her boyfriend is apparently killed in an attack by unidentified Romans, but Sierra escapes with a Celt shipmaster, who calls her Ampharette.

From Londoninium, Ampharette travels to Rome and then to Alexandria. There she meets Heron -- or Hero -- who is known for his invention of many toys such as the aeolipile -- a miniature steam engine -- that use technological concepts well in advance of their time. Heron was reportedly born in 150 BCE and died about 250 CE; however, the real Heron did not live quite that long. A time travelling impersonator took his name and contributed even more toys. Moreover, this impersonator had also invented the timetravel chairs.

In Phrygia, in 404 BCE, Alcibiades -- favorite student and friend of Socrates -- is rescued by Heron and Ampharette from Spartan assassins, but a mindless clone is killed and left behind in his place. Alcibiades sails back to Athens with Heron and Ampharette, but refuses to travel in time to rescue Socrates from his imprisonment. Instead, Alcibiades stays hidden in Athens and builds an organization of disaffected Athenians.

In this story, these primary characters cross paths in New York, London and Athens at various times. Heron, Sierra and Alcibiades, of course, converge on the time just before Socrates takes the hemlock. The timetravel chairs are controlled by Heron and so are not reliable transportation to ancient times, but are used frequently between 1889, 2042 and 2061.

Obviously, Socrates is guilty as charged of corrupting the youth of Athens. After all, he encourages them to question the customs and traditions of their society. Very few parents, especially in ancient times, would approve of their children asking -- or answering -- the questions discussed in the Dialogs. Such questioning could overturn all of civilization.

The reasons for rescuing Socrates is based primarily on the strength of his mind. Whenever Socrates is portrayed in this novel, he displays an amazing ability to cut to the quick of any discussion or argument. Socrates, however, fails to understand the rare quality of his thinking.

Socrates is against written treatises, since they are immutable. Yet he doesn't realize that his philosophy only has to ask the right questions. Subsequent generations are still finding their own answers.

This story is an elaborate time travel puzzle. The main mystery is the author of the new dialog, but other questions arise and are answered. Still, some are left hanging, so a sequel is possible.

This reviewer has not read the author's other works. Reportedly, they are within the SF mystery genre. A similar approach is used to good effect in this story.

Highly recommended for Levinson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of time travel conundrums, ancient societies, and courageous characters.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Suppose you had access to a time machine and could go back to Athens in 399 BC and save Socrates from the mob's death sentence by hemlock. Suppose Socrates had his own philosophical and political reasons for not wanting to be saved and refused to cooperate. That's the underlying premise of this complexly plotted novel by an author I've never heard of before. The narrative is determinedly nonlinear, the action jumping back and forth among 5th century BC Athens, 4th century AD Alexandria, Roman England, 19th century London, and two different periods in the 21st century in several locations. Some reviewers have complained that this makes the story hard to follow, but I think the author was right in showing just how complicated time travel is (or would be) and how difficult to sort out cause and effect. Unfortunately, Levinson really isn't that good a writer and his prose is very badly in need of editorial assistance. He frequently makes poor word choices and the awkwardness grates. His characters are also pretty one-dimensional, acting erratically and unpredictably, which gives the reader no grasp on the continuity of the story. Sierra/Ampharete, especially, seems very casual about jumping into bed with another man shortly after her fiancé is murdered. Socrates seems not nearly so noble in his motivations as his admirers seem to regard him. And I find it very unlikely that so many people at so many periods of history would so casually accept the reality of time travel from a stranger. (The general response to being told about it, from Alcibiades to a Victorian publisher, seems to be: "Really? You don't say! Okay, let's go!") Several plot threads are left dangling, too: How does Sierra escape death in Alexandria? And what the hell happened to Heron, last seen smiling enigmatically? If you want to see how to handle a truly complicated time travel plot, peopled with rounded characters, read David Gerrold's _The Man Who Folded Himself_.

I've tried to read "The Plot to Save Socrates" several times, but have never made it past chapter 2. I have to admit that part of the problem is my dislike for time travel stories. I've only read a few that worked for me, as I find that they are overly complicated. This author by mixing up names and periods all over the place makes it even more difficult.

Unfortunately, the author does a few other things that made me close the book once and for all. Having bits of the story take place in several locations and during different periods, he tried to indicate that through the dialog. However, the mixture of modern syntax and simple words with an older syntax and more "50 cent" words just doesn't work. For instance, one character says ". . . I was exhausted last night. I was in the arms of Morpheus as soon as I reclined," sounds contrived.

After reading a couple of other reviews, I did try the final chapter to see if the story seemed well summarized. What I found was enough circumlocution to make me glad I didn't read everything from beginning to end.