Kindle
$7.99
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
$15.99
Paperback
$16.19
Buy used:
$15.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Tuesday, May 7 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 2. Order within 16 hrs 1 min
Used: Good | Details
Sold by Off2Marz
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Good

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Paul Levinson
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Plot to Save Socrates Hardcover – February 7, 2006

by Paul Levinson (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 56 ratings
See all formats and editions

Paul Levinson's astonishing new SF novel is a surprise and a delight: In the year 2042, Sierra, a young graduate student in Classics is shown a new dialog of Socrates, recently discovered, in which a time traveler tries to argue that Socrates might escape death by travel to the future! Thomas, the elderly scholar who has shown her the document, disappears, and Sierra immediately begins to track down the provenance of the manuscript.
The trail leads her to a time machine in a gentlemen's club in London and in New York, and into the past--and to a time traveler from her future, posing as Heron of Alexandria in 150 AD. Complications, mysteries, travels, and time loops proliferate as Sierra tries to discern who is planning to save the greatest philosopher in human history, or to do so herself. And she finds that time travel raises more questions than it answers. Fascinating historical characters from Alcibiades (of the honeyed thighs) and Appleton, the great 19th century American publisher, to Socrates himself appear. With surprises in every chapter, Paul Levinson has outdone himself in The Plot to Save Socrates.
Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 3
    Sierra Waters
  2. Print length
    271 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Tor Books
  5. Publication date
    February 7, 2006
  6. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0765305704
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0765305701
  9. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this light, engaging time-travel yarn, Levinson (The Silk Code) ponders the problem of saving someone who refuses to be saved, in this case Socrates, the Athenian philosopher condemned to death in a shameful moment for democracy. Inspired by a newly discovered dialogue of Socrates in which he's offered escape by time travel, Sierra Waters, classics grad student in 2042, joins her professor, Thomas O'Leary, in a quest to return to the past. Along the way, Sierra gains a lover, the charismatic Athenian leader, Alcibiades, as well as an enigmatic ally, the fabled inventor Heron of Alexandria. Plans are made, betrayed and relaid, all aiming to bring Socrates away before his execution. But the wily thinker, out to embarrass Athens, will have none of it. The plot threatens to fracture as the characters constantly move backward and forward in time, but by the surprise end, Levinson succeeds in tying the main narrative together in a way that neatly satisfies the circularity inherent in time travel, whose paradoxes he links to Greek philosophy. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Classics grad student Sierra Waters is understandably skeptical when her advisor hands her an unknown Socratic dialogue between the imprisoned teacher and Andros, a time traveler. Andros offers Socrates an escape from the hemlock--a clone will be left in his place, and Socrates will live in the future. As she investigates the document's provenance, Sierra comes across a number of bizarre coincidences and, finally, the genuine possibility of time travel. She embarks on an adventure across past, present, and future, trying to puzzle out Andros' identity and save Socrates. In transit, she picks up Alcibiades of the honeyed thighs and enigmatic Heron of Alexandria. Eventually, she finds Socrates. The plot twists across itself, filling the book with paradoxes and potential paradoxes in total disregard for linear time, betrayal, and plotting. In the end, Socrates' fate and Andros' motivations and identity unexpectedly conclude a quick-to-read, entertaining treatment of the problems inherent in time travel with style and flair. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Edition (February 7, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 271 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765305704
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765305701
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.14 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 56 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Paul Levinson

Paul Levinson

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

My novel The Silk Code won the Locus Award for Best First Novel of 1999. My other science fiction and mystery novels include Borrowed Tides (2001), The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2014), The Plot To Save Socrates (2006; Entertainment Weekly called it "challenging fun"), Unburning Alexandria (2013), and Chronica (2014). The Plot to Save Socrates and The Consciousness Plague are available as audiobooks on Audible. My short stories have been published in Analog, Amazing Stories, Nature, Buzzy Mag, and other leading magazines, and have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards. "The Chronology Protection Case" (Nebula nominee, 1995) was made into a short film by Jay Kensinger, now on Amazon Prime, and was a Finalist in the Movies4Movies Film Festival Summer 2017. A radio play of "The Chronology Protection Case," nominated for the Edgar Award, is available as an audiobook on Audible. My alternate history story about The Beatles, "It's Real Life" (2022), was made into a radio play in 2023, is available as an audiobook on Audible, and was expanded into a novel, published in 2024. (The short story won The Mary Shelley Award fo Outstanding Fiction in 2023.) Nine nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997), Digital McLuhan (1999), RealSpace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2012) have been the subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science Monitor, and have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Arabic, and ten other languages. I co-edited Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion in 2015. My short books McLuhan in an Age of Social Media (2015), Fake News in Real Context (2016), and Cyber War and Peace (2017) are published on Kindle and in paperback and continuously updated. I appear from time to time on MSNBC, CNN, The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, NPR, BBC Radio and other TV and radio programs -- I like talking just as much as writing. I'm also a songwriter, and have been in several bands over the years - one (The Other Voices) had two records out on Atlantic Records in 1960s. My 1972 album Twice Upon a Rhyme (on HappySad Records) was reissued on CD by Beatball/Big Pink Records and on Vivid Records in 2009, and on re-pressed vinyl by Whiplash/Sound of Salvation Records in 2010. In the Fall of 2018, I recorded Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time, a new album of my science fiction songs; it was released in early 2020 on Old Bear Records, with vinyl distributed by Light In The Attic Records. I was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Top 10 Academic Twitterers" in 2009. I review television in my Infinite Regress.tv blog. Last but not least: I have a PhD in Media Ecology from New York University and am Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
56 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James A. Kostohryz
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth a read. But beware.
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2024
Verified Purchase
If you are interested in Socrates, Plato and Classical Athens, the book is worth a read. But I would be remiss if I did not warn that the literary quality is a bit rough. A work of a Hemingway or a Faulkner this is not. The plot feels contrived because the details surrounding time-travel technology are unconvincing. The flow is a bit rough. The dialogue is awkward, at times. The heroine is not a compelling personality. As a piece of literature, it lacks verve and polish. But taking all flaws into account, I can recommend the book for those interested in the period, place and historical characters.
Helpful
 Report
Ian Reide
4.0 out of 5 stars A time travel adventure and mystery
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2013
Verified Purchase
Here we have a 21st century Classics student begin and uncover a plot to save Socrates (this is somewhat given away by the title of the novel). The story involves a great deal of to and through time travel, a willingness on the part of many characters to blithely accept the notion of time travel, and a willingness on the part of the reader to follow a convoluted plot (at times I felt as if I should make notes). The resolution was a tad weak, but certainly not bad.

If you enjoy time travel stories, Classics, or a complex story, this is for you.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Lizzy
5.0 out of 5 stars DELIGHTFULLY THOUGHT-PROVOKING!
Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2009
Verified Purchase
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.
6 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
G. Hilfiger
3.0 out of 5 stars almost
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2007
Verified Purchase
I have read previous Paul Levinson novels and found them very interesting. This is my least favorite. It may be the time travel theme. There are so many time travel novels that we are used to the time travel paradoxes. Levinson does not have a really creative addition to the time travel novel, except perhaps the confusion of time travel which he handles by bouncing the story through a variety of times. Yet this device gets tiring. He moves characters around just to do so.

Socrates is an interesting choice, because he was'nt a scientist only a gadfly. There is a question of the real importance of Socrates.
Helpful
 Report
TW
2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Idea - Yet Lacking Depth and Intrigue
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2011
Verified Purchase
The Plot to Save Socrates is centered on time travelers from various periods of history. The story revolves around determining the veracity of a newly discovered scroll that indicates someone may have saved Socrates' life after his trial.

The concept of rescuing Socrates and bringing him to a future time period is incredibly intriguing, however, this particular piece seems to have let the opportunity to create something truly fascinating slip by. Instead we are left with a rather dry and haphazard story with little depth created among any of the characters.

For any time travel piece it is reasonable to expect a fair suspension of disbelief. Yet the ease and speed in which many of the characters in this story accept time travel was far too much of a stretch. When dealing with some of the greatest thinkers in history, its fair to expect that more than a couple minutes of dialog would be required to convince them that time travel is possible, yet this story suggests otherwise.

There is no doubt the author has a fine understanding of history, but the creative juices must not have been flowing with this piece. One would expect significant depth of character, conversational intrigue, and profound dialog when interacting with some of the great philosophers, yet this book lacks all of this. I found myself struggling to push through the story desiring more for the physical end of the book than the conclusion of the story.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
P.S.
5.0 out of 5 stars Musical Chairs
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2013
Verified Purchase
Somewhere in my brain lie remnants of a minor in Philosophy from long ago. Paul Levinson's ambitious novel, "The Plot to Save Socrates," reminds me of how much I've forgotten. (Socrates? Name sounds familiar.) I found it to be educational, challenging, fascinating, clever, complex, and occasionally exhausting, but surely enjoyable.

You do have to pay attention, as the cast of characters are jumping places and eras like a game of musical chairs -- Time Travel chairs, which are their means of spanning millenniums. Fortunately, dates and locations are clearly labeled with each chapter and change, so it's easy enough for readers -- but not always for the travelers. Levinson writes, "She had to find out the date. The time-traveller's eternal question...."

Another favorite line: "He heard the hounds of paradox baying in some corner of his brain...." That might apply to me, but selective re-reads help, or perhaps there's a new App -- Paradox & Time Loop Check. I did find myself questioning motivation and intent a couple of times, but these are minor distractions in the scope of a satisfying story.

To quote Sierra, a main character: "Nothing is certain where time travel is concerned." I agree. It's fiction, very well written, so enjoy the ride.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Andrey Mir
5.0 out of 5 stars Time travel and media ecology
Reviewed in Canada on March 28, 2024
Verified Purchase
Time-travel stories are commonly used to explore questions of logic, ethics, philosophy, and social organization. Paul Levinson’s "The Plot to Save Socrates" (2006) adds media ecology to this set.
The story unfolds as an investigation into the plan devised by a mysterious inventor and time traveller, who resolves to save Socrates owing to his immense value to humankind. This person enlists other characters in the scheme, whether they are willing participants or not.
The main issue, however, is Socrates himself. As we know from real history, he did not want to be saved. Convicted to death by the newly established democratic court of Athenian citizens for corrupting youth with his teaching, Socrates, presumably, wants to turn his death into a showcase for history. He aims to equate the judgment of his peers with that of the crowd, essentially discrediting democracy as a rule by people without merits. Meanwhile, as both an ethical and historical statement, Socrates’ self-sacrifice historically ranks second only to that of Jesus Christ.
The plot of “The Plot” provides the author with unique opportunities to extend Socratic ideas and apply them to various media, historical, and political phenomena. For instance, Socrates contemplates the nature of industrialization when encountering identically produced items, which was impossible in craftsmanship economies. Socrates is also forced to develop his well-known rejection of writing. While observing book volumes in a modern library, he still finds arguments to reject the “dead words” of letters, even though they kept his thoughts alive for millennia.
As a character in the story admits, he feels as if he lives in a Platonic dialogue. Levinson, indeed, even dares to write another Socratic dialogue. The dialogue of Socrates with the mystery time traveller, allegedly lost and recovered, sets up the story itself, giving the participants of the plot guidance and motives. Levinson has his time travellers argue with Socrates in attempts to persuade the philosopher against dying, employing his own logic and ethos. Otherwise, what else could rival the power of Socratic thought? So, the “discovered” dialogue is meant to be self-fulfilling: it triggers the chain of events and kicks off the story itself.
All of this is embedded into an adventurous story, where characters from the past, present, and future travel to different eras and cultures. They live their mundane lives there – talk, eat, fight, love, and die – while trying to bend history without destroying it.
Report
Ignite
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, intricate plotting
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
This intricate plot successfully combines time travel, history, philosophy and a good writing style to bring a story such as I’ve ever read before. The main premise is that a group of people are attempting to persuade Socrates not to take the hemlock which kills him. There’s a plot to save him but he feels he needs to take this step, agonising though it will be. We find out why and how it’s proposed to do this. There’s a complex thread of both time and place as characters move from past to present and future using programmable chairs. As you can imagine, it requires a degree of suspension of disbelief but the story was coherent and, within its genre, credible.

Paul Levinson has a comfortable writing style and I was rapidly drawn into this tapestry of historical and fictional characters. Some of the outcomes were very satisfying and it’s evident that there will be more to come. Enough hanging threads remain to ensure that there’ll be more time travel in my future. I enjoyed it very much.
One person found this helpful
 Report
Mr. John Frank Herbert
3.0 out of 5 stars A Plot To Send Us Screwy!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2008
Verified Purchase
I love time-travel tales, I really do.
And this plot to save Socrates seemed a fairly good yarn to follow-up on.

Sadly, I believe the excessive comings and goings of various characters in time-travel chairs, renders the end result as a nonsensical spaghetti junction that leaves the reader not only utterly confused about who is who, but why and what are they trying to do, and for what reasons?

In the end I was worn out by it all, and my mind was reeling from attempting to piece it together as I went along.

As I put the book down at its conclusion I sought my first, instant reaction, which is usually the most accurate.
I was damned relieved it was all over.
Report
Tiffany Reed
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2015
Verified Purchase
Top Banana!
Report