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
Just FYI. Last chance here. We’ll be making selections within the next couple of weeks and letting applicants know. It’s a great pool again, and I anticipate another great group visiting us here in Laramie come July. There will be an alternative Launch Pad opportunity I will be announcing soon as well. I had a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Despite the fact that I’ve run a couple of marathons in the last few years, I struggle with my weight and general fitness level. Like a lot of smart technical people and science fiction writers/readers, I sit on my ass a lot in front of a computer, or have meetings, or read/write. My job and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>…and Leonard Nimoy, Richard Dawkins, among others. Having a nice dinner with my wife tonight and not going to spoil it with blogging. At least not blogging more than this! If you have any interest in getting me a gift, buying a copy of Star Dragon or Spider Star as an ebook would be a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>A little abbreviated today. I’ve got to go to a Persian New Year dinner, which should be fun, but more importantly, I didn’t do so much surfing this week as usual (yay!) and have a bit less to share. It’s ironic, too, given that this was the first week in a couple of months that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I think it’s probably real (who could act that well?), and both real sad and real funny. It’s what’s going around in my science circles right now. I have had students over the years close to this dense, unfortunately. Understanding units is critical! Do you think it’s for real? What’s wrong with our educational system [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>Continuing to be busier than I had believed possible… Thinkgeek has a telescope ring! I’m tempted… Awesome “Romance of Radio Astronomy” t-shirt. I myself have observed 3C 390.3 recently (it’s a quasar) recently. Now let me geek out in a critical way. I will assume the scene is evening, not early morning, because people have [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>It’s not like it is for students! I spent several nights at our local observatory collecting data successfully. The internet was down, however. And since we were working, I didn’t get a lot of other work done. I have to write a magazine article this week, review 23 graduate fellowship proposals for NASA (hundreds of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>It was my wife’s birthday yesterday and we did a lot of things together, and I didn’t get to the starlinking. I’m going to our observatory later today and I doubt that I’ll be blogging from there — the internet is apparently out of service at the moment there (microwave links and such aren’t quickly [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I read all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter books when I was about 10, and loved them. I read the Marvel Comics version in the late 1970s as well. John Carter is basically a superhero in space with swords. That’s very appealing to the boy in me still. I’m not sure how well they [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Well, “David Constantine” is actually a pseudonym for a near-future technothriller/science fiction writer buddy of mine, David J. Williams, who has made a departure from his previous work with The Pillars of Hercules (at which link you can verify the pseudonym, or you can check the book out for sale here at amazon, also, but [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>One of the insufficient but realistic ways to consider the concept of the alien is to consider the diversity here on Earth. One reason some people snicker at Star Trek “funny forehead” aliens is that they’re way too close to human, and it seems very unlikely that they should be. Star Trek tried to fix [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>The apocalypse associated with the end of the Mayan calender is supposedly scheduled for December 21, 2012. It’s also been suggested that that date might be wrong, but I think it’s safe to say that our culture has embraced Dec. 21, 2012 as a significant date. Unfortunately that means silly movies like 2012, but also [...]
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