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.
"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
« Previous Entries Next Entries »
We’ve just had a major announcement concerning first results from NASA’s Kepler Mission. Before providing links to the details and reactions to the details, let me describe what the mission does and what it will continue to do. Kepler is basically just a big digital camera in space that takes pictures of a field of […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>I made some strategic errors in my career, mostly because I split my energy between engineering and astronomy double majoring when it would have been better to commit to one or the other early. By most measures, I’ve done fine, now being a tenured professor at the University of Wyoming, with a salary, research, and […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>I’ve written about applying for jobs and given some tips about on-campus interviews. I wanted to give some brief advice about what to do when you actually get a tenure-track job offer. My advice will be pretty general, but with a few more specific things for science jobs like astronomy. First, celebrate. It’s hard to […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>OK, I’ve already written two posts on this, an initial one with a lot of links and a follow-up after I’d gathered more information for myself. I’ve continued to read some documents, in particular several hundred pages of depositions. Maybe only several hundred…there are thousands there, and depositions are boring mostly. My opinions have evolved […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I’ve had some time to read more about what is going on and think I’m getting a clearer picture. Let me restate the basic issue with greater understanding than I did before. Martin Gaskell is an astronomer in my subfield, and a pretty good one, and someone I consider a friend. He’s also pretty religious […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>I was going to write about something else today, but saw this story about Martin Gaskell, a friend of mine. There’s also a blurb at the Chronicle of Higher Education with a few really interesting comments. Atheist blogger PZ Meyers has a post about the story, most of which I agree with, frankly, but I […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>I recently posted some thoughts and advice for landing a faculty job. I didn’t mention much about what to do, and not do, on the actual live interview short-listed candidates get. I’ll try to stay general, but my expertise is based on experiences on both sides of the process in the field of astronomy and […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>I’ve been able to get funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation to support my efforts to educate and inspire through science fiction. One example is the anthology of astronomy-oriented short stories Diamonds in the Sky. Another is the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers, which is a one week crash course in the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>We’re in what I hope is the home stretch of a faculty search for a tenure-track astronomer to join our Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Wyoming. I probably should have posted something a couple of weeks ago after the first couple stages of the process were complete, or wait until it’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>I got an email from a professor I know. I know a lot of professors, and I won’t say who or where, but this should be more broadly known: This past week I helped grade midterm exams for Calculus I…One of the problems involved an astronaut on the lunar surface throwing a rock vertically into […]
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 »>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 »>