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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Richard Muller should have known better, but he’s a physicist, and I know enough physicists to know that some don’t respect other disciplines as much as they should. This is old news, but with a recent NYT op-ed, he’s laying it out much more clearly than last year: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>It’s too late now, but it was possible, so let me explain how. Before I do that, let me note that some people loved Prometheus, like Roger Ebert, even though he takes issue with Creationist commenters who think the movie is pro Intelligent Design. There are some who are willing to ignore the bad science, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 73 Comments »>My personal feeling is that religion is incompatible with science, but there have certainly been religious scientists capable of doing good science. People compartmentalize and turn off their critical brains when it comes to certain topics. I don’t see the difference between being critical about astrology and being critical about any supernatural claims. Still, a […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>I’ve seen this on facebook recently, and another friend just emailed it to me, so let me post it here to launch a couple of points for discussion: So how about if I knew all that already? And could even make some minor corrections? Do I get to be certain? A quick google fails […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>I’ve written in the past about peer review (and links therein), particularly my annoyances with how some referees don’t seem to be constructive about it, and in fact can be condescending assholes. I made my suggestions about improving it while keeping it anonymous. Another option is to remove anonymity, which I think does have drawbacks, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>There’s a letter being widely posted on conservative blogs: March 28, 2012 The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr. NASA Administrator NASA Headquarters Washington, D.C. 20546-0001 Dear Charlie, We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments »>I’ve been thinking more about some practical problems we’ve been developing in science. Now, they aren’t as bad in my field of astronomy, since we’re relatively small, don’t involve huge sums of money, and rarely have results that are politically problematic. But we still have the same problem: null results don’t get published very often. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Jake Kerr’s Lightspeed story, “The Old Equations,” has been nominated for the Nebula Award for best novelette. It’s thematically related to Tom Godwin’s famous story “The Cold Equations” which I’ve written about at Lightspeed and on this blog. I basically got the gig to write a non-fiction article about “The Cold Equations” because the editor […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>Recently I highlighted an astronomical blunder by literary giant Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea. He is far from unique. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, James Thurber, Edgar Allen Poe, and others of similar literary greatness, have all similarly blundered. A lot of the mistakes involve the moon: “Till clomb above the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>There’s a fun, literary homework problem in the textbook I’m using this semester (Foundations of Astrophysics by Ryden and Peterson). It’s a pretty good textbook overall, although it’s a bit calculus heavy for when some of our students take my course and it’s short on example problems. One thing I do like is that the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>Yesterday I watched the animated Batman movie, Gotham Knight: It’s a collection of interrelated short pieces by different creative teams, which isn’t bad, but the different styles is a little jarring. I mean, Bruce Wayne looks different in different sequences and it was a little hard to follow. I can recommend the movie, but […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I think about communicating science to a wide variety of audiences, both as a professor who does research and teaches, but also as a science fiction author. Knowing your audience is key, and knowing how to reach them better helps tremendously. A lot of what I say will apply to both non-fiction and fiction, speaking […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>