Spider Star
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."
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Five Science Fiction Movies that get the Science Right
May 11th, 2008
I tried for ten physical science-based science fiction movies a few months back. Five is less ambitious and easier, letting them pick better movies on average, although I have quibbles.
This is the list from New Scientist:
2001: A Space Odyssey. I agree. Tops my list, too.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s a good movie, but it doesn’t “get the science right.” We know very little about how to manipulate memories this specifically, and with it being set in the present, it was very implausible. I think the best that could be said for the science is that it’s so vague in this film that it isn’t obviously impossible.
Alien. Another good movie, and one on my original list. I removed it on my revised list, however. It wasn’t at all clear that they’d avoided FTL travel, even though travel times were long and suspended animation was used. Also, doesn’t the alien explode in space? That’s unlikely, among some other biological issues.
Gattaca. Another fine film. I like it very much. The physical science was absent or stupid (that was astronaut training?!), however, so it didn’t make my list. The biological science was much better, although I was skeptical about some details.
Solaris. I’ve heard good things about both versions, and the original Lem story, but I confess I’ve never watched or read any of them. I want to, at some point. I do object to New Scientist pulling a fast one here. “This Russian classic makes the list not so much for the specific science it portrays, as for its portrayal of the limits of science and of human understanding.” What??? That’s getting the science right? This movie represents 20% of the entries.
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There’s some internal evidence from the movie that the Nostromo is FTL. For one thing, it’s no trouble for them to divert to follow up on the distress call, which for a ship travelling at .99etc C would be challenging. Also, I asked Alan Dean Foster once if he knew if the ship was FTL or not (I was involved in an interminable argument about it on rec.arts.sf.fandom) and he was pretty sure that although the script never says, that was what the script writers intended.
The alien doesn’t explode due to vaccuum so much as it falls into the path of the life-boat’s rocket blast.
One of my college roommates summed up the original version of Solaris very well by saying “this is a movie for people who like to drink coffee at night.”
James, I think you’re right that Alien has FTL. The rocket blast thing is news to me, however. Interesting, and not clear to me watching before. Maybe I’ll take another look.
Jonathon: That’s funny!
Off-topic but the Matthew Hughes’ novel that I reviewed today has a habitable world orbiting a white dwarf. No hint as to how such a world ended up habitable but it’s far enough in the future that it could have been terraformed, depopulated, lost and then rediscovered.
Mike, making people forget specific memories may not be far off, or even possible now. Check out this episode of the excellent RadioLab podcast:
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08