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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There are issues about private industry vs. government, moon vs. Mars, each country for itself or in collaboration, etc., but these, I feel, pale in comparison with the real issue. This week President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, a 3 year plan for NASA’s spending that also clarifies NASA priorities for the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>Better than Star Wars? Better than Blade Runner? Better than Back to the Future? Better than Alien? Better than the Matrix? Better than 2001? I don’t think so, even though I enjoyed the movie very much, but the reviewers at IMDB disagree. Top Rated “Sci-Fi” Titles Rank Rating Title Votes 1. 9.0 Inception (2010) 200,923 […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>It came up in a post last week (and follow-up comments, thanks James Nicoll!) that E. O. Wilson thinks it would be a bad idea to colonize space, apparently because this is a “ruinously expensive” way to deal with overpopulation. The big space colony days were in the 1970s, after we’d landed men on the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>So I just succumbed to one of those facebook memes: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen short stories (or novelettes or novellas) you’ve read that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I’m interested in […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>We’re going to treat astronomers as a subset of physicists here. Sure, some do. A lot don’t. One time I went camping with a group of guys I didn’t know too well. They came from a wide range of backgrounds, and a lot of them were Christians of various fundamentalist stripes. One of these guys […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>I try not to use this blog as a platform only to rant, but I do rant from time to time. Things do get me upset, and strong emotions (good are bad) are good starting places for meaningful writing. I have a strong sense of justice and fairness, so I never have a lack of […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Apparently Margaret Atwood, the author of the Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake, doesn’t believe that men walked on the moon. Maybe it’s worse than that — she’s trying to hedge her bets because she’s a “smart” person who knows being skeptical about this is idiotic and doesn’t want to admit to herself that she’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments »>An author friend of mine sent an email to a list I’m on: I’m about to start teaching an Honors science and lit class and I have a whole bunch of various definitions of what science fiction is, but many of those are from academics or dead people (I have some who are still alive […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments »>One of my old, fairly innocuous posts has been climbing up the popularity lists: The Importance of Science in Our Lives. It’s just a link to an article online with a little commentary. I see on my statistics pages that a lot of people arrive using google searches of “Importance of Science.” I wonder if […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 59 Comments »>When I was in Manila last month, I was happy to be able to meet fellow speculative fiction writer and blogger Charles Tan. Something he said resonated with thoughts I’d had over the years. Basically it’s this idea: if writers are paid a certain amount per book that depends on the market and their audience […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>Inspired by this list of the scariest foods (many of which I’ve eaten, including balot and rocky mountain oysters), I was thinking about scary science fiction foods like those live worms that the Klingons eat and decided to try to think of the really distinctive foods and drinks I’ve come across in science fiction. Not […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>I saw this person, Sharon Lamb, being interviewed on CNN or MSNBC last week. This article, “Superheroes send out ‘wrong message’ to boys,” covers the same things she said on tv. For instance: “There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” Dr Lamb told the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>