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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Ten Things I Love About Science Fiction
September 18th, 2008
OK, I’ve given out a list of ten things I hate about science fiction. I love more than I hate, so time to even up the score. I doubt this post will be as popular as that post, however. We love to hate more than we love to love it seems. Anyway, onward:
1. Something New. When I pick up a book or put in a DVD that’s science fiction, I expect to something new. It won’t be the world as I know it, and it won’t be a world I’ve seen before. I’m disappointed with some bad science fiction that’s just World War II in space, or cowboys and indians in space, or similar, but when I get that hint of the new, bam, I love it.
2. Sense of Wonder. Great science fiction makes me sit back in my chair and go, “whoa.” I love that feeling. It doesn’t have to be from something new, and many new things alone won’t do it, but an idea, or image, or something amazing that’s unique in my experience. Whoa. Love it.
3. Learning things. You can learn stuff from any genre — MacGyver comes to mind — and it could be argued that non-fiction is the first place to go. I have to say though that we learn through story easily and quickly. My introduction to special relativity came in Joe Haldeman’s excellent novel The Forever War. Todal forces from Larry Niven’s “Neutron Star.” And I hope that readers have learned something about novas and binary stars from my novel Star Dragon and something about dark matter from Spider Star.
4. Seeing sides of humanity possible in no other way. How would we react to the discovery of aliens? Or aliens much smarter than us? Aliens with different belief systems and good reasons for having them? Or technology that gives us opportunities and challenges we’ve never had before? Or we will have, but not yet?
5. Cool special effects. OK, I have to admit I love the spectacle. Seeing fantastic mind-blowing images on the big screen is awesome. I still remember the chill I had watching the opening of Star Wars and seeing the Imperial Destroyer, that giant ship, sliding up behind the rebel ship like some primeval space shark. Then the light sabers coming on, the holographic chess game, the whole damn movie. For 1977 it was absolutely amazing. I wish George Lucas hadn’t touched it. (Han shot first.)
6. Alien aliens. Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris is one good example. I hate the humans dressed up in costumes with funny noses posing as aliens, but give me something that acts and thinks differently, but intelligently and self-consistently, and I’m hooked. I try to do this in my own work, and have only partially succeeded in my opinion.
7. Thinking. Now, there are a lot of genres in which intellectualism can be found, but for me science fiction is always the first and best. You get puzzles dealing with aliens. You get science puzzles. You get abstract ideas. Really good science fiction makes you think.
8. Scientists portrayed as heroes, at least sometimes. I first saw Star Trek when I was six, and Mr. Spock was, for better or worse, a role model for me. He prized logic above all else. Unfortunately Kirk had to use his bravery to save the day in the end most of the time, but Spock was a leading character, super competent, strong, brave, and more, and his guiding principle was logic. And yes, he got to be the hero often enough. Star Trek II The Wrath of Kahn was great. They should have probably stopped the series there.
9. Scary monsters. I mean, surprisingly scary in ways never before conceived. Alien scared the crap out of me as a kid, just reading Alan Dean Foster’s novelization. When I actually got to see the “John Hurt” moment years later in all it’s gory glory, it was still damn scary.
10. World-building. I love really great world-building, in which a writer has created an entire environment and it feels real, and presents me with consistencies that aren’t obvious at first, but fit together wonderfully. David Brin’s Kiln People is one recent example I think is great. Ringworld by Larry Niven, and his Known Space stories, is an older one.
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I am also a big fan of #1,2,6,7,10. I generally like my sci-fi writers to be more creative than me, and if they can pull off at least a few things in these categories I’d be very pleased. I hope to see something new with every book I read. Obviously that is not always the case so I guess it just proves how hard it really is.
After reading your previous list I’m trying not to bring the word “hate” back into the discussion so I’ll just say that I am greatly peeved when #4 DOESN’T happen. In other words I am peeved when the story is set so far into the future that alien interaction is either too commonplace, overly casual or intimate, or only limited to diplomatic encounters between leaders and the like. Tolerance between everyone and everything in sci-fi really bugs me. It makes a society seem not real. On the other side, only showing contact with ‘leaders’ of specific alien cultures makes me think that the author didn’t really want to actually create whatever culture is being alluded to.
As for #9, one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen is Event Horizon. While obviously a little hokey regarding black holes and all that I was still creeped out by the concept; not just the gore and cheap scares.
Spock was brave too!
Really though, Star Trek was a comment about how all kinds of humans can tackle situations together.
It’s funny but if I met a Star trek fan, it was like an instant psychological exam for me, in that it was a mark of a good person. They’re people who like working together, generally speaking.
SF does inspire people to act on ideals instead of what’s practical, and that’s good.
[…] Ten things Mike Brotherton loves about Science Fiction doesn’t include the fact that, pound for pound, sci-fi comes with more explosions than any other genre under the sun, which would be number one on my list. […]
EXPLOSIONS! Brilliant!
Boo funny-nosed aliens, hooray explosions!
As much as everyone goes on and on about how Star Trek violates so many ‘rules’ of good sci-fi I find it so hard to think negatively about it. Techno-babble and weird science aside, the situations of the cast were all an exploration of the human condition, fulfilling #4. Maybe that’s enough to make it great. And techno-babble or odd gadgets never really bothered me as long as they furthered the plot and just weren’t taking up space. I have to admit I actually like it if it’s done right.
However I’m also a fan of putting away the technical jargon when it’s not required (which is still most of the time).
I’m paraphrasing a quote by Robert Heinlein, “Don’t be concerned with the workings of a machine as long as it works.” . . . or something like that.
I really enjoy Star Trek at its best. It’s really great. There are some episodes so bad, however, that it makes me want to cry. All incarnations have reached heights, and succumbed to depths of disaster.
As for “exploring the depths of humanity”, the character created essentially to do only that is one of the most intolerable characters in any of the Trek series; Counselor Troi. Most of the episodes centered around her are awful.
I agree. Troi sucked! That actress and Wil Wheaton both got crappy roles on that show, with the occasional high points blotted out by flawed ideas.