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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The inspiration for this post constitutes our first two entries: ‘Alien vs. Predator’ was ‘a pity,’ says Ridley Scott A pity, yes. What a pithy way of putting it. Alien (1) was a tour-de-force of science fiction horror. Predator (2), although not as ground-breaking, was also an entertaining film with some originality and nice monster-building. Later […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>I’m going to hammer some popular books, books that I love, but for a number of reasons these stories just won’t translate well to the big screen. Maybe some brilliant director could do it, or the stories could be rewritten, or made into mini-series, or something, but I don’t see any winners here in the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>A friend of mine emailed me to ask about something he remembered Timothy Leary saying in a speech 30 years ago: “Our enemy is gravity. That’s why we die. We are all fighting the earth’s gravitational pull. We will live forever, once we escape the pull from Mother Earth.” Leary had some kooky ideas for […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>I was talking to Mike Resnick at a convention and he remarked about the print run of his first book, which was close to six figures. Now, he’s a good, big name writer, but new writers in SF today as opposed to decades past rarely have print runs at that level and the average is much […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>Over at sfsignal.com, there’s a new Mind-Meld topic I’m participating in: Q: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin said fantastic space science fiction shows and movies are partly responsible for the lack of interest in real-life space exploration among young people. Do you agree with this assessment? Why? In addition to myself, participants include Larry Niven, David Brin, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>The poll the other day on the Mars stuff was so overwhelmingly one-sided, even for science fiction readers and fans of science, that I wonder about my audience here. Let’s take a poll and please leave comments, too. Personally, I read science fiction for a glimpse into a different world that is based in reality. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>According to this article: NASA has commissioned a specialist to recreate the smell of outer space – which has been described as being similar to fried steak and hot metal. Too bad there’s not another presidential debate, or we could hear about the money John McCain will save us by stopping such foolishness. (Sorry for […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>Really interesting stuff on James Nicoll’s blog: The facts are wrong Gene Ward Smith asks what looks like a reasonable question on rec.arts.sf.written The mass-luminosity relationship for main-sequence stars was known [during] all of the Golden Age, and hence it was [known] that all of those sfnal Rigellians and Denebians were nonsensical, Was this simply […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>James Harris calls for more real science in science fiction, and discusses how there’s science as fantastic as science fiction already out there to inspire and to steal from. Steal is my word, not his, but it’s a time-honored tradition in the fiction business and the sincerest form of flattery. I remember reading about how […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>There’s a seldom-used form of science fiction that I don’t see a lot of, but I think I would like to. I’m going to call it “subtle” here for the sake of discussion, but that’s the wrong word. It’s more profound than subtle. I’d love to get to some pointers about examples. Anyway, let me […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>New Scientist says the best sf film is Blade Runner. Runners up are 2001, Solaris, and Serenity. The worst? And other categories? Worst sci-fi films: The Blob, the 1958 sci-fi/horror film starring Steve McQueen. “I saw The Blob when I was about seven years old and haven’t eaten jelly since,” said one of our staff. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>This is my opinion. I like to think it’s well-informed as an astronomer and science fiction novelist who spends way too much time thinking about such issues, but the fact is we’re too ignorant on this topic to speak with a lot of authority. If nothing is there, we won’t find anything, for instance. But […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>