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... Read More.
Praise for Star Dragon
"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
Why does anyone on Star Trek ever die? The transporters seem to remember their pattern, which should let people make easy copies or, at a minimum, make back ups.
If they can go out in the sunlight, why are they called “vampires” in the Twilight books? If I put on some glitter can I call myself a vampire?
If the Terminator hadn’t gone back in time to kill Sarah Conner, how would John Conner have been conceived? The Terminator wouldn’t have been sent if John Conner hadn’t have been conceived.
Remember those eagles at the end of Lord of the Rings? Why couldn’t they fly everyone to Mordor from Rivendell in the first place? Would have saved us about nine hours.
Why doesn’t Professor Dumbledore use that Time Turner thing to fix problems a lot more regularly, as in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure?
On the Six Million Dollar Man, why didn’t the bionic arm get pulled off Lee Major’s body every time he tried to lift a car? His arm was strong, and his legs too, but not the rest of the body.
On the new Battlestar Galactica, why is it so hard to tell the difference between a human and a cylon? The cylons are killed by some radiation humans find harmless, for instance (I know what weapon I’d invent), and are stronger than humans, too, but apparently advanced technology can’t easily tell the difference.
Where does the extra mass come from when Bruce Banner Hulks out?
Why does The Sword of Shannara remind me of Lord of the Rings minus the poetry?
If there really could only be one, as established in Highlander, what idiot greenlit sequels? And can we take his head already?
In the Core and Sunshine, why are manned vehicles required to deliver their payloads? Other than “because it’s more exciting,” that is.
What do Luke Skywalker and Starbuck and Apollo do about going to the bathroom on long flights?
Why does Kirk enjoy sex with aliens of all types, but won’t consummate his own true love with Spock? Why do so many women say they find Spock sexier than Kirk?
Why can’t people tell the difference between Superman and Clark Kent? Does suspension of disbelief really go that far?
The Big Bang Theory on TV: A Step Forward or Backward?
July 1st, 2009
The issue of the TV comedy, The Big Bang Theory, came up in comments earlier this week.
Pros: the show is funny and gets its science and geek culture very correct. Here’s a scene about the problem with teleportation:
Cons: for the most part, the characters are stereotypical nerds who lack social skills, dress oddly, and have trouble getting dates, let alone getting laid. Here’s a scene with the one guy who is portrayed as having a small clue and does get laid sometimes:
I have degrees in engineering, physics, and astronomy, and have hung out in the nerdiest of places doing the nerdiest of things (at the level of the show, if not nerdier). I’ve also gone to trendy clubs in big cities, played drinking games with students (but no keg stands for at least four years), and ran marathons. I know some really attractive social geeks of both sexes who can blend in with lawyers, baseball fans, or the roadies at a Marilyn Manson concert.
There’s truth in stereotypes, however. My roommate in grad school once got set up to meet a girl for a workout date. An athletic date, how could that go wrong? Well, when he got to the gym, she took one look at him and asked, “Math or physics?” He had been a physics major, but had switched to math…
Marshal Zeringue, who previously tapped me for The Page 69 Test: Spider Star, has another blog series interviewing authors about how they see their book being cast and directed in a hypothetical movie. Here it is, in part:
My novel Spider Star from Tor Books is a far-future space adventure with starships, aliens, advanced technology, and a lot of astronomy. Unfortunately a lot of Hollywood movies with these elements wind up being pretty dumb, with Armageddon at the top of the heap. With this in mind, my first notion about my book as a movie is that Michael Bay be assassinated if he even hears the slightest whisper about Spider Star. I might become suicidal if my ideas became transformed into a Michael Bay movie.
Having said that, my choice for director would be Zombie Kubrick, but he worked slowly even when he was alive, so let’s go with Robert Zemeckis. He did a good job of making the science fiction elements of Contact realistic, and I love the way he uses special effects as a tool rather than an end product (e.g., Michael Bay).
There are three point-of-view characters in Spider Star. Frank Klingston is an older family-oriented man of Nordic stock who has put his days of exploration behind him, but when his world is threatened, he takes up the challenge. A lot of the book is about him struggling with sacrifice for his family, which he must give up in order to save, and how discovery and risk are a young man’s game that he must learn how to play all over again. I see William Hurt pulling off Frank Klingston, mixing elements from his roles in The Accidental Tourist, Lost in Space, and the Sci-Fi Channel adaptation of Dune. He can do wise patriarch, and disconnected man searching to feel that fire of life again.
While Frank is big, blond, a little soft and reluctant to embark on an extended mission to deep space, his counter point is Manuel Rusk. Rusk is smaller, younger, darker, and much more ambitious and anxious to prove himself. My first thought was Antonio Banderas, but he’s getting a bit old himself, and also perhaps a bit too old would be Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert on Lost, and BatManuel on The Tick, and the Mayor in The Dark Knight). I’d prefer a younger, more ambitious actor. Freddy Rodriguez, who played El Wray in the Planet Terror segment of Grindhouse, would be terrific.
The third main character is Sloan Griffin, sometimes lover to Rusk, and fellow Specialist with a passion for security and spotting the things that are out of place. She’s focused, dedicated, and extremely competent in her work. I see Carrie-Anne Moss who played Trinity in the Matrix movies and the mission commander in Red Planet. She seems to exude the qualities in her roles that I think of when I consider Sloan Griffin.
I would trust Trinity to off Michael Bay if his name came up in association with the project.
Lawrence Krauss, of The Physics of Star Trek fame, and a serious and accomplished scientist in his own right, starts with this famous quote:
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
– J.B.S. Haldane
“Fact and Faith” (1934)
This is the “faith” of a scientist, that physical laws repeatedly operate in the same way for everyone everywhere, and that systematic experiment can let us learn how they work. Science has a great track record, and images of Jesus or the Virigin Mary do not seem to regularly appear in vacuum chambers or on powerful lasers and draw thousands of pilgrims.
If the experiment came out differently every time, I don’t think science as we know it would exist. And neither would we or an ordered world of any sort.
In the sense that traditional religious people see things, Einstein was an atheist. As Einstein saw things, this ordered pattern of laws underlying the universe was itself miraculous and what he meant when he used the word “God.” (Which I wish he hadn’t, because too many lack the understanding to appreciate this.) This is pretty far from religion, which posits unprovable things beyond this order that scientists study, but I guess you could call it spirituality.
The religious scientists all set aside their religious mode of thinking and use the same methodology when conducting experiments, because the two modes are not compatible. This is Krauss’s point, and he carries it to the next level, suggesting that the scientific mode works well under controlled conditions and should be the default for interfacing with reality more generally.
Anyway, Krauss’s essay resulted in various blog responses and long comment threads here, here, and here, among other places.
Oklahoma’s News 9 has done a segment on Rep. Sally Kern’s Proclamation for Morality in which she blames the nation’s current economic and other problems on gays, abortion, divorce, and all around lack of Christian faith.
This is from an elected official. People hear this, find it good, and vote for her. She probably has a birthmark that looks like Jesus on her left buttock…
I can always go pick on the Creationists, Anti-Vaccination folks, or any of literally thousands of individuals or groups that believe irrational things and harm comes from those beliefs. And many of those individuals or groups are well respected people in the public eye who rarely face serious criticism, and cry foul if there’s even a whiff of it around them.
This sort of stupid nonsense is not my America or my world and it sure has nothing to do with science, reality, or anything good and decent at all.
First, there is a quality to this book I adored that makes me want to recommend it here. The main character, Matt, is a physics graduate student struggling a bit with life, love, and a career, as many of us do. But the thing is, he’s really a physics graduate student when he approaches problems. So few books feel like real science or real scientists inhabit them, but aside from a few quirks of character, this part felt real. Matt is a young scientist, not a bad caricature of a young scientist, which is more often seen in books and movies.
Going back to Haldeman’s classic The Forever War, he’s always done a great job creating interesting futures, and this book is no different. Always surprising and thought provoking. One of the more interesting futures involves Boston after Jesus’s second coming, and how exactly an atheist Jewish grad student might respond to that (and be responded to).
Haldeman’s style is clean and easy, making the pages almost turn themselves. In my opinion, a little bit too easy and fast at times, and some events flew by too quickly and needed more verbiage and description than given.
This story also suffers the problem of a lot of time travel stories that the ending is bit deus ex machina, although Haldeman is more subtle and less formulaic on this issue than most. I don’t think some readers will be satisfied, however. If you loved The Hemingway Hoax, you won’t have a problem with this book, but if you did you might want to skip it.
Again, a strong recommendation if only for an engaging story about a young scientist that actually gets the feel of being a scientist right. There aren’t enough of these out there (Timescape comes to mind), and I’d like there to be a lot more.
The way I do starlinks is that I open browser tabs with links, and don’t close the interesting ones until after I do a starlinks post. When I get too many tabs open, I do a post. Sometimes the links are very fresh, sometimes a little old. Haven’t done one in a while, so it’s longer than normal. Enjoy.
A guide to author websites. Do I need to put up a permanent page for pictures of my with my cat? I will. I love my kitty.
I’m just like Alastair Reynolds. An astronomer who writes science fiction novels. Except I don’t have a million pound, ten year contract for ten books. I’m envious, although that’s a workload and he had to give up astronomy years ago.
Does it bother anyone else that essentially all of Harry Potter’s education at Hogwarts was about rote memorization of spell casting and totally divorced from “muggle” education?
I mean, the wizarding world need not worry about all the same things that the muggle world worries about, but come on. You’ve still got money, so math, economics, business, etc., are all still important topics. And we have evidence that even with the textbooks being about recipes, experimentation with potions and such leads to better results, so science and the scientific method should be taught, too. Astronomy in the Harry Potter books didn’t seem to be anything scientific.
And how about reading, writing, and all the other things that get taught in middle school and high school? If we let history be replaced with magical history, okay, that still leaves the human condition as a topic that Hogwart’s students skip.
Now, if I were writing the Harry Potter books, I’m not sure I’d do anything different from J. K. Rowling, but their enormous popularity among YA readers disturbs me a little when I think about this topic. How much of their popularity is about changing the subjects of high school into something different and easier? I mean, I think this stuff is going to seem easier to readers. I think I could cast spells better than I could figure out what it means to be human in the face of great tragedy (e.g., what you’re ideally confronted with in English class from time to time), or what is the meaning of art.
So I submit that all the wizards and witches coming out of schools like Hogwarts are miserably educated people without much to their background or experience than the ability to use a wand. Unfortunately that sounds like muggles who just use technology without understanding it, and use Cliff Notes to pass exams.
It’s not good.
If Harry Potter couldn’t cast spells, who would hire him except for McDonald’s? And who would find him an educated, interesting person?
I’ve been involved in a few discussions recently where some instances of really dumb things in science fiction movies came up. I’m not talking science here so much (my usual issue to harp on) as just things that are so astoundingly dumb you got to wonder what people were thinking, or if they were thinking at all.
TV has more dumb crap than movies, but you have to start somewhere, and films are generally a lot more memorable and more commonly shared.
Here’s my short list of losers, but I’m sure you can suggest some other ones. Prepare to groan, laugh, or cry…I’ve dug up some relevant videos for them, but it wasn’t always easy. Be warned that there are spoilers below, but personally I’d like to be warned about the mega dumb in order to avoid it.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. God lives in the center of the galaxy beyond a great barrier that no one can get through, and that no one has ever gotten through (so how do they know he’s there?), except that the Enterprise can fly there in a few hours and zip in and out without any problems. (Wish the crew of Voyager knew it wouldn’t take them decades to travel a fraction of that distance.) God, where to start? The whole thing was just so very, very dumb.
The Star Wars prequels introducing the midi-chlorians as essentially “sexually transmitted disease” carrying the Force (thanks, Brian, for that way of looking at things). There was a bunch of other dumb stuff, too, from trying to make the Force sort of scientific, and then making Darth Vader the product of a virgin birth. Oh, and Jar Jar Binks. C3PO was the comic relief in the original movies, but that wasn’t enough. Or how about the offensive racial stereotypes pasted onto the aliens? Still, I pick the midi-chlorians.
Superman flies so fast, the spin of the Earth reverses and so does time, so he can rescue Lois Lane from the nuclear-explosion-triggered earthquake. WTF? I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And in the second Superman movie, he and the Phantom Zone criminals start pulling powers out of their asses like those light beams out of their hands. (OK, not their asses, technically.) It’s not science, it’s not even fantasy (which would be self-consistent in most cases). It’s just dumb, almost like “then he woke up and she wasn’t dead.” And unfortunately, the Superman movies got more and more dumb with additional sequels.
Han shot first in Star Wars! We’ve already got dumb stuff in the creature cantina scene with Han’s line about the Falcon making the Kessel Run in under 12 parsecs, something that Lucas didn’t fix when he revised the movie. You don’t just go back and change characters like this and think it’s smart. It’s like da Vinci rising from his grave to put a little frown on the Mona Lisa. It’s dumb! Actually, when I watch the new one, it’s like someone scribbled all over the Mona Lisa. Not that Star Wars was ever the Mona Lisa, but still…
In the movie Signs, these sophisticated and evil alien assholes fly to Earth, a planet rich in life and oceans and rain, and attack the humans with hand to hand combat. If that weren’t dumb enough, water, WATER, is like acid to them. Oh, God, yes, about the only substance scientists universally think is likely necessary for life. Dumb!
In Independence Day, the scientist uses his Mac to upload a virus to help beat the aliens. WTF? Computers in movies may as well be totally fucking magic. Any computer genius can hack a password in a minute with a gun to his head while getting a blowjob (Swordfish), so this fan-altered ending to ID4 may as well have been what happened.
The dragons of Reign of Fire eat ash (lots of chemical energy there), destroy almost all land-based life on the surface of the world periodically yet leave no evidence of this, and have only a single male to fertilize the eggs for the entire species. I mean, these fuckers hibernate, too, right? For next to forever, apparently. The dragons were so cool, fighting them was so cool, but the entire concept as developed was incredibly dumb!
Basing a serious movie like Mission to Mars on the “Face on Mars” is an idea that should have been laughed out of production. But noooooo…and we’re all the dumber for it.
The plot of The Core. Bonus points for applying “this is your brain on drugs” type visuals to “this is the Earth without an E-M field.” There’s a lot of dumb in here. Microwaves go right through magnetic fields, but not through atmosphere very well, for instance.
Got to finish up with my favorite kick ball, Armageddon. Any scene in the whole movie is dumb, I suggest. I’ve ranted about this one before. More than once. It’s not only the science that is dumb, however, but a lot of the little complicating details that make no sense. I mean, these are fucking morons running around in space with 12 days of training coming down with “space dementia” and attacking each other and being general goofs. Sorry if I’m being too repetitive with this, but I can’t make a “dumbest” list without including this entire movie. Anyway, here’s a ten-minute version of the film that has cut out most of the movie (and hence most of the errors) and should be the official version from now on.
I’m sure there are a lot of equally worthy matches to these, unfortunately. Somehow there’s always room for dumb stuff in movies, even when people are spending $100 million.
How to Support the University of Wyoming Geological Museum
June 25th, 2009
Thanks, Toni! Spreading the word:
Checks can be made out to “Friends of the S.H. Knight Geological Museum” and sent to:
Friends of the S.H. Knight Geological Musem
PO Box 1752
Laramie, WY 82073
There is also a website at http://www.keeplaramiedinos.blogspot.com. Its seems there will also be info tables at Washington Park at Freedom Has a Birthday (July 4th) and at Jubilee Days downtown.
I’ll be back in Wyoming in a couple of weeks and will write a check. Hope I’m not the only one.
My parents set up my first science fiction experience. They called me into the living room when I was about six (1974 give or take) and told me that they had a surprise for me. They then turned on the TV and there was Star Trek.
Little did my parents, or myself, realize what happened on that day.
My first real science fiction novel was Philip Jose Farmer’s A Private Cosmos, in second grade, which I’ve written about before when Farmer recently passed from this world.
Third grade was the year of Star Wars. I was there opening night with my family. Standing in a long line waiting to get in, we were handed “May the Force Be With You” buttons. We had no clue what the hell that meant. A very innocent time.
In sixth grade, I was reading the Dune trilogy (it was still only a triolgy then I believe). I did an oral book report about Dune Messiah and was probably the only one in the room besides the teacher who knew the word “concubine.” Science fiction is great for the vocabulary. Unfortunately, the teacher suggested previewing my future book reports.
I started writing my own science fiction in grade school, with my first real effort in sixth grade. Pretty terrible stuff. I was ripping off John Carter of Mars and worse, ripoffs of John Carter of Mars. We all start somewhere.
There was Battlestar Galactica, and V, and Logan’s Run, and a hundred other movies, TV shows, and books. I remember reading Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of Alien in bed and it scarring the crap out of me (about 5th or 6th grade). I never got enough, and still don’t.
There was my Farmer phase, my Frank Herbert phase, my Heinlein phase, my Asimov phase, my Piers Anthony phase (I admit it!), my Anne McCaffery phase, my Michael Moorcock phase, my Pohl phase, my Poul Anderson phase, my David Brin phase, my Orson Scott Card phase, and my Simmons phase. I read books I probably now don’t even remember they ever existed.
My first Worldcon was in New Orleans in 1988, but I didn’t know how to do a con. I went from panel to panel chasing my heroes, trying to catch a glimpse of them all, and met almost no one.
There was always a little writing here and there. A story for an English class. A dungeon for a D&D game. Just a project of my own. I wrote stories and made my first submissions in college. I only got serious about writing after finishing my classes in graduate school, and Clarion West in 1994 was the flood gates opening for me, when I felt like I became part of the community instead of just an outside observer.
At a Worldcon party in 1995, Fred Pohl stumbled and fell next to me, and I helped him stand up. My god! In such a small way, that was totally cool.
After my first novel came out in 2003, I attended a convention in San Diego and got invited out to dinner with Gregory Benford, David Brin, David Gerrold, and Vernor Vinge, and treated as the new guy on the team. They told me they didn’t say anything nearly as important or interesting as James Blish, Harlan Ellison, or any of those old greats they hung out with when they were first breaking in. Well, I found the whole thing very gracious and intensely interesting.
Now sometimes it’s strange. I have friends who broke in with me, more or less, and who have won awards and are much read. We talk about this thing or that thing, bitch about this publisher or that obnoxious writer, and sometimes the magic seems, if not gone, a little less bright.
But to tell the truth, whenever I catch a glimpse of an episode of Star Trek from the original series, the magic is back. I’m six again, and the universe is very, very big.
I hope that never changes, because that’s really what science fiction is all about.
No, Seth Shostak is not a Predator, although that would be a cool book…
Seth is a radio astronomer who works for the SETI Institute hunting for alien signals from space, and he has a book out called Confessions of an Alien Hunter which is about SETI and his personal experiences with the project.
You may have noticed me linking to some of Seth’s articles in the past, sometimes responding at length or just a brief mention in Starlinks.
First let me say a few positive things about the book. Notably, it’s quite well written and an engaging read. I tend to find non-fiction slow going sometimes, and sometimes get mired in something I want to finish but begin to dread. Confessions of an Alien Hunter is chatty and entertaining throughout. I liked the dramatized scenes of what happens when there is a possible detection, and the combination of over and under reaction by different groups (e.g., the scientists and the media).
After a read of the book, you’ll have a pretty fair view of the history of SETI without a lot of excessive gushing (acknowledging that Seth is an optimist). I was particularly interested in the description of events concerning how the federal government shut down NASA funding for SETI and how the effort transitioned to private sources of support.
I was also favorably impressed by how well the point was made about how poor the SETI search has been to date. I think there’s a general notion that if aliens are trying to contact us, we’ll know it immediately and easy, like in a Hollywood movie. It would be even tougher if not impossible with current technology if they’re not trying especially to talk to us. I also think there’s an excellent point to be made about how the quick pace of technological advancement has meant rapid growth in SETI power. Radio astronomy in particular benefits from computer advances more dramatically than most other types (e.g. optical).
There’s a good update on exoplanet discoveries (although that’s rapidly getting outdated as the field is moving so fast) and how one term in the Drake Equation is getting nailed down a lot better in favor of optimistic numbers.
Personally, I think SETI is a longshot to turn up something in our lifetimes, but definitely worth the effort at least at levels currently planned. I am not optimistic enough to shift own my research to SETI, but I would if we found a signal. And that’s another detail I appreciated learning. The way the searches are done, there’s not much information being collected initially and it might take years to build the equipment to properly followup the detection of a real SETI signal, if it comes in at a weak level (which wouldn’t be unlikely).
Seth also covers the claims by UFO fans and abductees in a pretty reasonable way, in my opinion. He’s fair, and very skeptical, which I think is the correct response given the available evidence.
The book is not very technical in general, and if you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of SETI and how different searches have been conducted in detail, you need to look elsewhere.
Finally, here’s a promotional youtube video featuring Seth talking about SETI:
Wish I had such nice videos to promote my books. Well, Seth deserves it. Good book.
Let me know if you’re interested in an interview with Seth and feel free to suggest questions. I know him online a little bit and expect he’d be happy to do it.
For its own merit, I have no respect for the law. Or rules. Or any arbitrary regulations. One of those facebook quizzes pegged me as Chaotic Good, with a Spider-Man icon. Guilty.
A lot of the time, rules make no sense except to some idiot who wanted a little order at the expense of justice, fair play, and everything that is good.
I am personally offended that some library douchebag read the caption of a newspaper photo, saw this kid’s town, tracked down his contact information, and called his parents to tell him he can’t use their library any more.
This is evil.
I’ve loved libraries my whole life, despite my own incident. I have my own library bitch story from first grade when I was told I hadn’t read a book from “the big stacks” because I was too young to have done so. That incident helped to form my hatred of bureaucracy and irrational rule following. And of library police.
Seriously, this is the sort of incident you don’t investigate, let alone follow-up on, if you discover it. If I had my way, I’d fire this librarian in a heartbeat and make them work penance as a clown for children’s parties for a year.
In whatever I do, I try to follow the rules when they make sense, are fair, and when they’re stringently enforced and I have to. I try to keep in focus what is actually important in any given situation. In this one, it’s a kid’s enjoyment of reading and his presence in a library.
Man, this just steams me. I bet this kid is going to form some life-long attitudes about this, and not necessarily positive ones.
When I was a kid, Spider-Man was more supportive of kid’s reading (see below clip from The Electric Company), and I’m afraid that situation may not have changed enough.
And the police-man Morgan Freeman is okay here, too. Now, the librarian in the story is just a dumb, destructive Yeti. (I want a Yeti…)
If you’re a librarian, be a good one, okay? Our kids need you!
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