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...
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"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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So I saw a story about a new educational website run out of Berkeley called Understanding Science. I’m very supportive of such things in general, and I like a lot of things on the site. Unfortunately — you what is coming by now, don’t you? — there’s some politically correct biased rubbish in there as […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>I read fantasy and like it. It isn’t always my first choice, but I really love a great fantasy book. While there are some deeply profound and moving fantasy novels, I look to fantasy especially for escapism. I still expect it to be self-consistent but I don’t have to tear my hair out over it […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments »>They say that the golden years are your last ones in life, the gold age of comic books was the 1940s, and while there was a similar boom in pulp sf, that the golden age of science fiction is when you were twelve. You’ve probably already seen this, or heard of it, but for those […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>I’m not talking about the interesting TV show, Life on Mars, but an Einstein quote from a letter he wrote in 1933 to a professional musician living in Germany: I am the one to whom you wrote in care of the Belgian Academy…Read no newspapers, try to find a few friends who think as you […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>I was reading a book of quotes, and one of the notes mentioned that Einstein, much to my consternation, believed that people should NOT read science fiction. His reasoning? It distorts science, and gives people the illusion of understanding science. Hmm, shades of Buzz Aldrin here. I have some of the same objections as Einstein, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments »>I think I may have touched on this topic in the past, but reading Redshift Rendezvous the other day reminded me of a common misconception with regard to astronomy. Again, I recommend John Stith’s novel of mystery and action involving a hyperspace ship on which the speed of light is quite slow and relativistic effects […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I’ve been a big fan of comic books since I was a kid, and most make little sense when viewed from a scientific perspective. That’s fine. I let that axe rest years ago. They’re a particular type of modern, urban fantasy and I can happily enjoy them as such, as long as they enjoy some […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>OK, I’m going to go after a biology story today that I found particularly poor. The Perfect Mate: What We Really Want, by Meredith F. Small, apparently an anthropologist at Cornell, somehow, according the bio. First she opens with something of strawman argument, simplifying a position she’s both going to support and contradict in the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>Build a small monster, then soak it in water overnight. Heh. More seriously, my guide for this sort of mad scientist activity is the fossil record. Anything resembling a giant monster there is plausible. Look at dinosaurs, giant sloths, giant lizards and crocs, etc. Plausible. Anything else needs some more work. The limits on giant […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>Cliches are a part of reality. No matter how many times people have seen some things, they want to see more. They like riffs on the familiar. People like new things, but not too new. Mass audiences never seem to tire of cliches. They abound in fantasy and horror in particular: vampires, werewolves, wizards, elves, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments »>One of my common themes is how to properly educate people to think more scientifically. I think the world would be a better place, more rational, more productive, if people made their decisions based on reliable information — the kind that comes from science. Unfortunately a majority of people don’t do this regularly, and even […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>I mean it, literally, as a premise for a story to learn about ourselves. A couple of months ago, I wrote about subtle science fiction, in which human nature was explored by changing some aspect of human nature and seeing the results, rather than the more common juxtaposition of human beings in novel or extreme […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>