Spider Star
The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon...
Read More.Praise for Star Dragon
"Seldom does a storytelling talent come along as potent and fully mature as Mike Brotherton. His complex characters take you on a voyage that is both fiercely credible and astonishingly imaginative. This is Science Fiction."
-- David Brin"Star Dragon is terrific fare, offering readers a fusion of hard science and grand adventure."
-- Locus Magazine"Star Dragon is steeped in cosmology, the physics of interstellar travel, exobiology, artificial intelligence, bioscience. Brotherton, author of many scientific articles in refereed journals, has written a dramatic, provocative, utterly convincing hard science sf novel that includes an ironic twist that fans will love."
-- Booklist starred review"Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy astronomer Brotherton's first novel."
-- Publishers Weekly"Mike Brotherton, himself a trained astrophysicist, combines the technical acuity and ingenuity of Robert Forward with the ironic, postmodern stance and style of M. John Harrison. In this, his debut novel, those twin talents unite to produce a work that is involving on any number of levels. It's just about all you could ask for in a hardcore SF adventure."
-- Paul di Fillippo, SCI-FI.COM
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A Key Difference Between Science and Science Fiction
June 18th, 2009
Above and beyond the basic skills these areas require, some of which like writing and editing are in common, there is a key creative difference.
When you’re learning to be a scientist, you get trained to say “no” to ideas.
Most ideas are probably not original and wrong, and even the popular ideas are usually not right in their details and need revision. Teaching students how to be critical and not accept every ideal as likely is central to science. All ideas are not equal. Again, most are wrong.
When you’re learning to write science fiction, you need to say “yes” to ideas.
Most ideas are not original, or necessarily interesting, but there is usually a way to make them so with some creative effort. If you apply the science thinking to the process, you kill off your best ideas, when almost any idea can be made into something glorious and wonderful. If you figure out the angle that makes it so. There’s usually one, if you keep looking.
Sometimes it’s hard to go back and forth between the two, but it’s good for scientists to keep in a little “yes” to make insights, and science fiction writers to keep in a little “no” to dig out more interesting ideas.
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Was it difficult for you to separate the science half of you with the science fiction part considering that Spider Star is a hard science fiction novel?
When I first started writing, I shied away from hard science fiction. I shot down a lot of ideas and had a hard time with it, frankly. It took some effort to get over it, but everyone should try to play to their strengths.
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Travis, I eventually learned how to turn off the science critic when developing science fiction ideas. It kept me from writing space-based hard sf for years, however.
The initial trick was to write about something astronomical I didn’t know much about, developing and idea first and then getting the research in to make it work. At that point I knew how to look for ways to make the idea work rather than prevent the idea from developing.
It seems now that with scientists increasingly constrained within their narrow fields, it’s up us science fiction writers to do the blue-sky thinking. But putting across some fantastic idea, something original, is not likely to be taken seriously by the science community who demand the following criteria: the science background of the writer, and: how the idea relates to known facts or theories.
But as you say, applying the science thinking to a creative idea can kill it off. Though of course, when dealing with the future, today’s knowledge would be a limiting factor.