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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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 »>The other day I linked to this story from the Economist called “Publish and Be Wrong.” They were making the criticism that scientists may be overselling their results to get into the most prestigious journals, and hence the top journals were more likely to be publishing “wrong” results. Well, I have been thinking more about […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>I double majored in college in electrical engineering and space physics, before going on to get advanced degrees in astronomy. I made a conscious choice to pursue science rather than the more lucrative engineering. Why does this matter? Why should you care? I am interested in the issue of politics and science, and the more […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 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 »>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 »>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 »>In my post about Ten Things I Hate About Science Fiction I wrote: 4. Inconsistent or illogical time travel. It seems like writers just make up rules for time travel that make no sense a lot more often than other types of stories. I mean, WTF was with that fading photograph in Back to the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>There’s a basic misconception floating around out there about the size of the universe. Astronomers trying to be accurate are probably guilty for some of this because we always hedge our bets. We know that the universe is big, really big, from Douglas Adams. He’s right, but there’s a difference between infinitely large and really […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>It seems that massive Earth-like planets exist in other star systems, rocky bodies with masses several times higher than that of the Earth. Some scientists are trying to understand the geological structure, volcanism, outgassing, and plate tectonics. This is probably more detail than you might need to write a story, but thinking about these details […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>One of the other issues I didn’t mention yesterday that comes up in hard science fiction is figuring out the parameters for artificial gravity. It’s relatively straightforward. Here’s the amazing scene approaching the orbiting space station: It’s possible to calculate the gravity on board the outer ring. Wikipedia provides the necessary information in its article […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>