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
My first novel, Star Dragon, got a starred review from Booklist, which a lot of librarians use in purchasing decisions. I hadn’t seen their review for Spider Star until now. It’s also a very positive starred review: The author of Star Dragon (2003) returns with another compelling work of hard sf, this time involving a […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>That’s the topic for my class this week, and I just wanted to share a brief introduction with some links to some interesting videos and history regarding nanotech. Let’s start with NASA Kid’s introduction to nanotechnology. Then there’s a nice, more adult introduction with a summary of current nano state of the art. Historically, the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>I generally only censor spam or super obnoxious posts from my blog, and luckily haven’t had any in the second category (knock on plastic). I’m in turns bemused and annoyed with comments on some entries, like this one, about the antiscience propoganda piece that is Expelled. I know I’m going to be preaching to the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>Grrrr!!! No one better tell me about how science reporting is good and I’m being unfair. I dare you. I double dog dare you. My research specialty is quasars. I love quasars. I’m a world expert, and I know more than anyone you know about them, and also what we don’t yet know about them. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>It’s one of the proposal seasons in astronomy this month. There have been deadlines for applications to use the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and a dozen other ground-based telescopes (e.g., NASA’s IRTF, NOAO’s telescopes at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo, etc.). I also just got my CD filled with Hubble Space Telescope […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>As a professional astronomer with a faculty job as a professor at the University of Wyoming, I find it very common that people outside of academia don’t really understand what it is I “do.” A lot of misconceptions floating around there, so let me knock some down first before building something in their place. First […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>“A dark-matter world holds the key to a weapon from the heart of a sun.” That’s the tagline on the cover. My new hard science fiction novel, Spider Star, was published by Tor this week. I’m pretty happy to finally have the book out, the current expression of my attempts to make my career in […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>I’m the founder of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers, which I run annually each summer in Laramie, Wyoming. This year the workshop will run from July 30 to August 5th, the week immediately prior to Denver Worldcon. Denver is only a two-hour drive from Laramie, and this will allow interested participants to attend […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>From time to time I’ll write about the courses I’m teaching, at least when I think it’s interesting behind the scenes. It should be this semester. Last year and this year both I’ve started my Science and Science Fiction class with “The Cold Equations,” a famous proto-hard sf story by Tom Godwin. My course is […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.†— Albert Einstein This is going to be a call for reason to the smart people out there who do stupid things too often, too consistently, or too loudly. All smart people do stupid things. I’m a really smart guy, and I’ve been […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>I was in the habit back in the 1990s of collecting quotes. I came across the file earlier today and thought I’d share. Quotes range from Einstein to Hemingway to the Tick and even Mariah Carey. I used some in my first novel. Enjoy! Because the heart beats under a covering of hair, of fur, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>