The Silk Code
Podiobooks.com is proud to present the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel, Paul Levinson’s “The Silk Code,” read by Shaun Farrell.
Phil D’Amato, New York City forensic detective, is caught in an ongoing struggle that dates all the way back to the dawn of humanity on earth–and one of his best friends is a recent casualty. Unless Phil can unravel the genetic puzzle of the Silk Code, he’ll soon be just as dead.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Gave it three chapters and just couldn’t get into the story.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:34 am
It is growing on me, but it was tough going at first. The last couple of chapters (8 & 9) were the best so far. It’s been hard to get know the characters in a believeable vein.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:43 am
It does start slowly but it is starting to build my interest. Don’t give up on it too soon!
April 28th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Great premise for a story – and the writing has you hooked right from the start!
June 19th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Loved it.
However I was really confused for a long way through until the end.
I finished it but wanted to know more…….
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:52 am
I’m digging the story, the first part caught my attention enough that I’m forcing myself through the guys sailing around the islands. But I’m sorry, the narrator is killing it for me. He is so busy making sure that he over-annunciates every single word that it’s just impossible to get into it. The dialogue for me never sounds like people talking, I can’t escape the “Someone is reading this to me” feeling. It hasn’t made the book intolerable yet, but it’s borderline.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Interesting take on genetics, human history, and science fiction. A great weave of a detective story with a dash of history and a whole lot of great science fiction.
August 11th, 2007 at 4:57 am
Mr. Levinson, I am enjoying your novel as I listen to it on iTTunes. Many of the theories you voice in it are actually based on archaeological and historical findings. Michael Crichton touched upon it briefly in his rendition of the tale of Beowolf, “Eaters of the Dead”. Also I read an article a few years back in National Geographic about the mixing, racially and genetically of the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons in northern Spain. Also touched briefly was the possibility that they warred against each other and possibly even hunted each other for food.
I think, like most good sci-fi, your story creates an eerie plausibilty that can in all likelihood be proven true by future archaeologists and historians.
Thank you for making your book accessible to a whole new audience.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
You’re very welcome, Julio – and thanks, too, to everyone else who commented here – much appreciated.
Thanks as well to Shaun – who made The Silk Code podiobook such a captivating reality.
If you’d like some further adventures of Phil D’Amato, you might enjoy some of my books in this list – http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/06/my-books-novels-and-nonfiction-and.html
And here’s “bio” of Phil, for your delectation – http://paullev.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=241319
September 1st, 2007 at 7:08 pm
The first is very intriguing, although I’m not entirely sure that I could believe that any of the Amish are secretly super scientists.
I think I’d rather read this instead of hear it though, because the narrator does not know how to pronounce the words Lancaster or Stolzfus. At least he didn’t trash the word Amish…
September 4th, 2007 at 8:51 am
You say tomato, I say Toemato? Nah, probably not. Paul and I spent hours going over pronunciations, but I was bound to mess up a few. All errors are mine and have nothing to do with Paul’s fine novel.
September 15th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
… then again, you are mostly speaking from the person of Phil D’Amato. As a New York detective he woundn’t have much occasion to get out to Lancaster county, PA, and probably would not know how to pronounce all those names either.
And so much for not being drawn in; I’ve listened to 19 episodes so far.
September 25th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Hi Steve. 19 episodes? Nice! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. It was truly an honor for me to read the book, and I look forward to doing another one so I can build on the experience.
January 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
To me, the more interesting the characters of a book are, the better the book itself is. It felt like the characters in The Silk Code were a secondary of even a tertiary part of the novel. If felt like the sciene of the story took presidence over the characters. It was entertaining, but didn’t grip my attention in the way other podiobooks have.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Let’s see… Terribly written, poorly read dialogue; unsympathetic characters with implausible motivations; and poorly thought-out plot developments combine to form a dull, flat, “who cares?” story. Skip this one unless you have a fetish for evil Amish.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Loved the book – just the sought of thing I like! The story keeps you on the edge trying to guess what will happen next and being shocked when the opposite happens. The only downside is the English accent – it was a bit too distracting and some times laugh out loud hilarious at the phrases either not used in 40 years or never used (I’m English!). We say quid as slang for pounds (as in money) – bob was really used for the old money before we went went metric in the 70′s! Copper is slang for policeman – Bobby is hardly ever used now – even by my 89 yr old Gran’s generation. This is just meant as useful criticism – perhaps a little extra research on local terminology and prononciation! Anyway, I will definitely be downloading any future story published here by Paul Levinson.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I really enjoyed the first part of this book with the allergies and the Amish. Then, some other story starts; I had to double check that I hadn’t missed an episode or two in my downloads. I just couldn’t get into the second story, got tired of it and stopped listening; which is a shame because the beginning of the book was really good!
September 6th, 2008 at 1:24 am
I enjoyed the story, the “science” seemed kind of silly at times and the last part seemed to drag a bit, but otherwise it was enjoyable. The main problem was that the reader’s “British” accent is absolutely terrible–I almost stopped listening because of that. Also, the sound effects were kind of bad – use a modern phone sound! Otherwise, this was a pretty good production if you can get past the terrible accents.
October 24th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Just bopping in here to say I’m glad this podiobook is still up and available, and for those who would like an instant delivery of the original novel, it’s now available as an ebook on Kindle http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091W43JW/ref=nosim/?tag=dexter2a-20
-Paul