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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Midweek Starlinks: Science, Education, Politics and more…
January 26th, 2012
First, I participated in a Mind-Meld at sfsignal.com this week about our introduction reading genre.
Interesting illustration of astronomical size scales.
Special relativity for dummies (aka writers).
Kentucky cuts education funding, but keeps tax breaks for a creationist theme park. Ugh. Really?!
Republicans turn their backs on the enlightenment. Chris Mooney tells us why. Or tries anyway.
The value of education. Scary but cool, too, if true.
What is it with women and the sciences? Some experiments suggest it isn’t stereotype threat. Wondering about it myself right now since our fraction of female grad student applications in astronomy seems a little low, although a couple of women are among the strongest, too.
Five things to know before dating a scientist. A bit too much generalizing for my taste. It may be that scientists generally abide by some stereotypes, but some are extremely clueless and some are extremely cool.
A paintball demo to demonstrate some aspects of quantum physics. (Thanks, Steve! Finally got to it!)
Science education group to tackle climate change.
And Missouri going after evolution education. Idiots. This guy, too, who denies it. Teaching the controversy is not what educators should do. There is NO CONTROVERSY among educated people on this topic. Only those with religious bias resist.
Canceling physics? The economics of education.
What happened before the Big Bang? Philosophers find something to waste time and money on again, as usual. 
SETI, Aliens, etc…. Alien footprints. Alien monuments. Top five claims of alien life.
Abolish the leap second? Say it isn’t so! Was just lecturing about this recently.
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Don’t know how that Inside Out program passed me by, since it was broadcast in my area.
Keeping on the subject of quantum physics. The understanding of it still seems to be based on probability – a mathematical analysis (because neither you nor any device can directly observe). But the word ‘probability’ implies a lack of understanding of the process. So why hasn’t orthodox science been able to make any breakthrough in this field for decades?
Perhaps there is still room for philosophy, when science hasn’t even answered the ‘how’ question, let alone ‘why’. There are still things that science hasn’t even *begun* to understand, such as the nature of time. At least in the absence of religion philosophy can guide us through these uncertain times.