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Sierra Waters #2
Unburning Alexandria
Mid-twenty-first century time traveler Sierra Waters, fresh from her mission to save Socrates from the hemlock, is determined to alter history yet again, by saving the ancient Library of Alexandria - where as many as 750,000 one-of-a-kind texts were lost, an event described by many as "one of the greatest intellectual catastrophes in history." Along the way she will encounter old friends such as William Henry Appleton the great 19th century American publisher and enemies like the enigmatic time travelling inventor Heron of Alexandria. And her quest will involve such other real historic personages as Hypatia, Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe, Ptolemy the astronomer, and St. Augustine - again placing her friends, her loved-ones, and herself in deadly jeopardy. In this sequel to the THE PLOT TO SAVE SOCRATES, award winning author Paul Levinson offers another time-traveling adventure spanning millennia, full of surprising twists and turns, all the while attempting the seemingly impossible: UNBURNING ALEXANDRIA.
250 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 2013
5 people are currently reading
376 people want to read
About the author
Paul Levinson
95 books344 followersPaul Levinson, PhD, is an author, professor, singer-songwriter, media commentator, podcaster, and publisher. His first novel, The Silk Code, won the Locus Award for best first science fiction novel of 1999. Entertainment Weekly called his 2006 novel, The Plot to Save Socrates, “challenging fun”. Unburning Alexandria, sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates, was published in 2013. Chronica - the third novel in the Sierra Waters time travel trilogy - followed in 2014. His 1995 award-nominated novelette, "The Chronology Protection Case," was made into a short film, now on Amazon Prime Video. His 2022 alternate history short story about The Beatles, "It's Real Life," was made into a radioplay, streaming free, and an audiobook, in 2023, and it won the Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fiction. "It's Real Life" was expanded into a novel, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles, and published in 2024. Paul Levinson was President of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), 1998-2001. His nine nonfiction books on the history and future of media have been translated into 15 languages around the world, and have been reviewed in The New York Times, Wired, and major newspapers and magazines. Two shorter books, McLuhan in an Age of Social Media and Fake News in Real Context, were published in 2015-2016, and are frequently updated. Levinson appears on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and numerous other television and radio shows and podcasts. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was reissued on CD and remastered vinyl and is available on Bandcamp and iTunes. His first new album since Twice Upon A Rhyme -- Welcome Up: Songs of Space Time -- was released by Old Bear Records on CD and digital, and Light in the Attic Records on vinyl, in 2020. Levinson is Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 2, 2013
A satisfying sequel to 2006's The Plot to Save Socrates, packed with intelligent twists, pulse-quickening action and philosophical conundrums. A great summer read!
April 12, 2020
A really enjoyable read, all the more fun because I teach a bit of Hypatia and Augustine in some of my philosophy classes.
This is a sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates, which is also fun, but there's a recap in this one so you could probably read this without having read the first one.
Sierra Waters is a mid-21st century grad student and time traveler who has (through a complex series of events) taken on the identity of Hypatia of Alexandria circa 400 AD. She's in search of her lover Alciabiades (yes, that Alcibiades) whom she has lost in time. It turns out there are other time travelers, including the mysterious Heron. Oh, and Augustine of Hippo shows up just for good measure.
That's the basic idea of the plot, but it's actually a lot more complex and intricate than that. The novel jumps around a lot between times and it's not always immediately clear when we are in the character's personal time even when the exact date is given. At first I was a little annoyed at how discombobulated this made the reading experience, but then I reflected that time travel just IS discombobulating, so it's actually a great example of using the text to put the reader in a similar state as the characters.
Historically, the novel maybe relies a little bit too much on the narrative about destruction of the library at Alexandria by ignorant religious types. Although the novel is a lot more nuanced than you get in say New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, a lot of the historical sources are a bit less determinate and the political situation at the time was no doubt more complex than "ignorant savages hate learning." It maybe would have been interesting to hear more about the gender issues surrounding Hypatia's life as a powerful woman in Roman antiquity, too. But it's historical fiction, and historical science fiction at that, so I'm happy to give some leeway.
Philosophically, I've never quite bought the idea that you can change the past, because if you changed anything in the past it would already be changed before you left (see David Lewis's magnificent article, "The Paradoxes of Time Travel" for more). But again, this is science fiction and the idea of the changing the past is just too fun a plot device to give up. It is fun to see how the characters try to change things without altering the historical record too much (on that point I was reminded of other books like Connie Willis's hilarious To Say Nothing of the Dog). I also love that the novel at least seem to be heading toward one of my favorite time travel ideas: the idea of causal loops, or that some things could have no discrete causal origin in time. I won't spoil it in the novel, but my favorite example is in the old Planet of the Apes movies where Zira goes back in time and gives birth to Caesar, who in turn founds the society from which she comes in the future. Another great one is Robert Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-"
So all in all, this is a fun read for fans of history (especially late Ancient Rome) and science fiction (especially time travel).
See my blog review: https://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/2...
This is a sequel to The Plot to Save Socrates, which is also fun, but there's a recap in this one so you could probably read this without having read the first one.
Sierra Waters is a mid-21st century grad student and time traveler who has (through a complex series of events) taken on the identity of Hypatia of Alexandria circa 400 AD. She's in search of her lover Alciabiades (yes, that Alcibiades) whom she has lost in time. It turns out there are other time travelers, including the mysterious Heron. Oh, and Augustine of Hippo shows up just for good measure.
That's the basic idea of the plot, but it's actually a lot more complex and intricate than that. The novel jumps around a lot between times and it's not always immediately clear when we are in the character's personal time even when the exact date is given. At first I was a little annoyed at how discombobulated this made the reading experience, but then I reflected that time travel just IS discombobulating, so it's actually a great example of using the text to put the reader in a similar state as the characters.
Historically, the novel maybe relies a little bit too much on the narrative about destruction of the library at Alexandria by ignorant religious types. Although the novel is a lot more nuanced than you get in say New Atheists like Richard Dawkins, a lot of the historical sources are a bit less determinate and the political situation at the time was no doubt more complex than "ignorant savages hate learning." It maybe would have been interesting to hear more about the gender issues surrounding Hypatia's life as a powerful woman in Roman antiquity, too. But it's historical fiction, and historical science fiction at that, so I'm happy to give some leeway.
Philosophically, I've never quite bought the idea that you can change the past, because if you changed anything in the past it would already be changed before you left (see David Lewis's magnificent article, "The Paradoxes of Time Travel" for more). But again, this is science fiction and the idea of the changing the past is just too fun a plot device to give up. It is fun to see how the characters try to change things without altering the historical record too much (on that point I was reminded of other books like Connie Willis's hilarious To Say Nothing of the Dog). I also love that the novel at least seem to be heading toward one of my favorite time travel ideas: the idea of causal loops, or that some things could have no discrete causal origin in time. I won't spoil it in the novel, but my favorite example is in the old Planet of the Apes movies where Zira goes back in time and gives birth to Caesar, who in turn founds the society from which she comes in the future. Another great one is Robert Heinlein's "-All You Zombies-"
So all in all, this is a fun read for fans of history (especially late Ancient Rome) and science fiction (especially time travel).
See my blog review: https://examinedworlds.blogspot.com/2...
February 1, 2014
If you thought The Plot to save Socrates was good, then wait until you read its sequel!
December 19, 2013
Sierra Waters's story continues, if that is the proper term for a time travel novel! A long anticipated continuation of The Plot to Save Socrates finds time traveller Waters again leapfrogging through history, adopting the appearance of historical personages in her attempt to avoid her own pre-destined demise. A satisfying sequel that makes you hope Levinson makes time for more! Five Stars!
July 21, 2015
A little slower-paced than the first book, but looking forward to the third in the series.
August 6, 2017
It sometimes got hard to follow with all the characters bouncing between various places and times, which versions we were seeing or who some of the secondary characters were, but I wasn't really interested enough to try.
August 15, 2013
The dreaded #2 in a trilogy virus strikes again. Unlike The Plot to Save Socrates, this one doesn't work as a standalone novel. Whenever our heroes get into deep doo-doo, an offscreen future Sierra Waters sends another nifty invention downtime to help them out (dea ex machina). Levinson must already be writing #3, in which all these loose ends get tied up, one hopes.
Like its predecessor, the book skips rather lightly over the practical problems of living in a different era. Just as well that all our heroes speak fluent Greek and Latin. But a single woman criss-crossing the ancient Mediterranean at will? And no unscrupulous ship's captain ever thinks "this one will fetch a pretty denarius on the slave market?" The basic premiss could hold the suspension of my disbelief for one book. Two books stretched it too far.
Like its predecessor, the book skips rather lightly over the practical problems of living in a different era. Just as well that all our heroes speak fluent Greek and Latin. But a single woman criss-crossing the ancient Mediterranean at will? And no unscrupulous ship's captain ever thinks "this one will fetch a pretty denarius on the slave market?" The basic premiss could hold the suspension of my disbelief for one book. Two books stretched it too far.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews