Hey y'all, it's Levar Burton. The Levar Burton reads podcast might be the perfect amalgamation of my work.

I get to introduce you to and read to you from some of my favorite authors, everyone

from Tony Morrison to N. K. Jemison to Stephen King. It's sort of a continuation of what we did on reading Rainbow only for adults.

The podcast also allows me to indulge in my love of speculative fiction,

which started even before my days on Star Trek The Next Generation.

And I close every episode with some of my own personal stories

and I explore what that story made me consider

about the nature of humanity, of technology, of relationships, you name it.

I believe great storytellers provoke you, move you, light a fire in you, as I learned from Alex Haley when we worked on roots.

We have a new season of Laver Burton Reeds coming to you on February 20th, and it's got everything you've come to love from the

podcast.

This season's stories will take us to a futuristic Rome, to a charming old mining town in Mexico to the depth of the underworld.

It's kind of like a book club except you don't have to do the reading.

I do.

Here's just a small taste of what you can expect this season. This is an

excerpt from Tara Isabella Burton's story, The Destroyer, about a power drunk scientist.

Long before my mother destroyed the world,

her experiments were quieter, more contained. They did not obliterate continents. They did not rack up the dead.

She began as a domestic researcher in the household of an Umbrian merchant,

engineering fish with mirrored scales. in the household of an Umbrian merchant,

engineering fish with mirrored scales.

She told me how he loved to see his own face reflected,

...