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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I am taking part in a Mind-Meld post over at sfsignal.com later this week. The subject is our favorite example of world-building. The ultimate in world-building was probably Lord of the Rings, for which J.R.R. Tolkien invented entire languages and histories. Not my favorite though by a long shot (did all the ballads and poems […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>I sometimes feel the need to balance criticism with praise. Just not necessarily at the same time or for the same things. Some people reading my blog for the first time because they saw my post about Michael Crichton may think I’m a Comic Book Guy type who hates, or is at least critical of, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>Earlier this week, award-winning sf writer Nancy Kress (who is attending Launch Pad next week, by the way) wrote a short post about “the point of fiction.” I agree with her that a primary point is indeed “to decide what matters.” Last night, I was starting to reread Robert McKee’s excellent book, Story: Substance, Structure, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>I’m ahead of the curve on science topics, usually, a bit behind on technology. At least compared to some of my very tech-savvy friends whom I talk with. I’m starting to catch up, a little. As an experiment, I have made an MP3 format recording of myself reading one of my shorter short stories, “The […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>Here’s the brief article quoting Buzz Aldrin: I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today. All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It’s not realistic…if you […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »>There are a number of writers of SF — I’ll briefly consider “speculative fiction” in general before turning to science fiction specifically — who have never written genre fiction. That is, at least as far as the publishers and bookstores are concerned. Some of these fall into the nebulous area of “literature” in which snooty […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 60 Comments »>The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is going on on-line and will produce the most energetic man-made collisions ever created. There have been concerns that this will produce various doomsday scenarios, but as Dennis Overbye writes in the New York Times citing a recent safety report, the particle accelerator isn’t going to create a runaway black […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>First, I am providing my own personal list in response to yesterday’s American Film Institute list. I’m going to overlook some questionable science in a few movies, and not overweight the science. I am going to leave out fantasy, including superhero movies and Star Wars — mitochlorians or whatever they were called does not make […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>There’s a TV special on tonight with AFI’s 10 Top 10 films, covering ten genres. I’ll skip ahead to give and discuss just the science fiction: Science Fiction Rank Film Year 1. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 2. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope 1977 3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982 4. A Clockwork Orange […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>I had a post over the weekend where I claimed that life on a planet around a type M star (see classifications here) would be like living in a red light district. Not the sex part, just the red light part. M stars are cool as stars go, around 3000 Kelvin or a bit less, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>NOTE: I’m keeping the below post as originally written. It will be superseded by a post to come as the issue is more complicated than I appreciated. A friend of mine has a story coming out and wanted to doublecheck some issues of colors on a planet orbiting an M-star. My friend supplied me with […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>Over at www.sfsignal.com here. Just plain missed it last week while I was traveling, which is dumb of me since sfsignal is one of the best sites to keep up with the science fiction world. MIND MELD: Scientific Accuracy in Stories Science fiction would be nothing without the science. Who doesn’t like reading about new […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>