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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It’s the time of the year when I start thinking about the schedule of activities for the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop for Writers. Most of the things we’ve done have been very popular and successful, but there was one controversial thing last year that I probably won’t repeat, at least not in the same form. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments »>Let me go on the record for finally appreciating that my super elite college prep high school didn’t have debate. I heard a rumor that it was because the headmaster didn’t think it appropriate for students to argue positions they didn’t believe in. Let me state this clearly for the record: Debate is a ridiculous […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>This new Mind Meld post is over at sfsignal.com, of course. Be encouraged to go read all the responses over there and leave comments. Here was my response: I haven’t watched a lot of recent TV shows, or seen every movie that’s come out. I’ll focus on some of the serious movies and TV shows […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments »>Not my list, unfortunately, but Cracked’s list. They have flight, super strength, super speed, telepathy, invisibility, super senses, and immortality. That’s a pretty good list of basic powers, although “immortality” seems to be in a different class to me (traditionally Claire in Heroes is good at escaping by jumping off buildings, ouch). It’s a pretty […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>There is a class of movies that is supposed to be set in the contemporary, modern day, real world and aren’t supposed to be science fiction. Technically not, anyway, and not marketed as such. Or at least have elements so far beyond what can easily be done today, elements glossed over and not even questioned, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »>Science papers get reviewed by other scientists in the field before publication. I’ve written down some thoughts on peer review in the past. Peer review is far from perfect, but it keeps cranks out of legitimate journals and improves papers generally. Some ridiculous anti-science people (like deniers of evolution and global warming, see here) like […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>There’s a really interesting article over at space.com about prospects for life on planets in the habitable zone of red dwarf stars. Most stars in the galaxy are red dwarf (type M) stars, and will live forever, more or less (hundred billion+ years, much older than the universe’s 14 billion years so far). I want […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I’ve been thinking about how hard it is to sell stories, to make a living as an artist, and how there are parallels with how hard it is to publish papers and to secure grants in science. There are some key differences, of course, but there’s something powerful in common, too. As an artist, a […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I was reading some internet forum recently where someone suggested that since parsecs were based on local geometry (how stars appear to move in the sky because of the Earth’s own motion around the sun), no one would use the unit more generally. Except that astronomers, do, all the time. Sometimes movie directors do, too […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>OK, I know that probably sounds obscene, but I’m hard pressed to come up with a name for what I want to talk about. What I’m talking about probably exists, but I’m not familiar enough with fantasy these days to know for sure, so I hope someone can help me out. Urban fantasy has been […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>He wouldn’t have been the person I’d predicted to do this, but I am thrilled: THE actor Dustin Hoffman is to spearhead an initiative to put real science into Hollywood science-fiction blockbusters. Hoffman, whose fortunes in sci-fi have ranged from the critically praised realism of Outbreak to the mocked killer squids of Sphere, will host […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>The capstone of earning a doctorate is the PhD defense, a final oral exam that is the final hurdle to achieve the degree. What is a PhD defense really like? Well, I had my own and have talked with many other PhD holders about theirs over the years, but this past week was my first […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>