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...
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
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Life in the Universe and the Solar System (Videos)
April 22nd, 2010
OK, I’m getting too popular. Another colleague hit me up for videos on an astronomy-related talk, “Life in the Universe.” I suggested some topics (Drake equation, Fermi Paradox, etc.) and said I’d look for some videos if I had the time. His presentation is tomorrow, so hopefully this will make his deadline and be a win-win (I get a non-trivial blog post out of it, and have some videos picked out to supplement any talks I myself might give on the subject). I do want to write about some more personal and original things soon, rather than just make posts like this or provide starlinks…and the end of the semester is coming up fast so I should have a little more time to do so. Well, here’s what I’ve found:
Neil deGrasse Tyson on “Are We Alone?”:
Carl Sagan on the Drake Equation:
Seth Shostak on the Fermi Paradox:
A NASA JPL video about life on Europa:
Discovery News on Life on Mars (apologies for the advertisement):
How about UFOs and Ancient Astronauts? I think I’ll skip finding an appropriately open but scientifically skeptical video — everything seems too gullible or too close-minded. Anyone know of a good one that covers the subject appropriately? And by appropriately, I mean open to the possibility, serious about what proving such a claim would entail, but not totally dismissive as “impossible” which makes the science fiction writer in me cringe with embarrassment for my fellow scientists. I mean, Fermi thought it a very reasonable proposition given sufficiently long periods of time, which we’ve had. One possible explanation for the Fermi Paradox, why we don’t see evidence for aliens having already visited us is that they’re not doing it openly this second and no one believes the people who do see them. Look, I’m skeptical, too, but I’m not stupid enough to say aliens haven’t visited Earth and it’s impossible that they’re doing it now. One of the better ones with Seth Shostak:
Oh, and I think extremophiles here on Earth can help us expand our notion of spots where life might take hold. Nice BBC video, apologies for the ad:
And one particularly interesting story of red rain falling in India, that some have proposed to be alien life from space. Two part BBC videos here:
Let me wrap this up with a long lecture (50 minutes) by Seth Shostak on SETI in general, which also touches on science fiction quite often:
A lot more great videos on this topic than on yesterday’s “Small Bodies in the Solar System.”
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Interesting collection, unfortunately I’m not much of a fan of the folks above (except Sagan, of course). Have to totally agree about being embarrassed for colleagues who say interstellar travel is IMPOSSIBLE (mentioning the Fermi Paradox in that context is a fine idea).
It would be incredible if no ETs have visited Earth. The only possible explanation for why they haven’t is that they’ve yet to discover our transmissions. But as described in the video, in all those billions years, earth (containing life beyond the bacteria stage) would have been of sufficient interest to explore, maybe colonise.
Anyway, there are some credible researchers into Ufology such as Tim Good http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=198KmUVVY1c&feature=related
The most convincing UFO case has to be Rendlesham forest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2CJY2VyCfo
Adrian, thanks for the links. I’ll check them out as time permits. I don’t want to be a close-minded skeptic…
[...] represent a variety of different editions and titles, so we don’t all have the same ones). Brotherton has collected some online resources on his blog. He’s collected a lot of videos about the solar system, often from the TV show universe. [...]