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
It’s been a busy semester so far, and I’ve had giant “to do” lists. I spent the evening hanging artwork on the walls as part of my remodeling. Some of the pictures have been leaning against an out of the way wall for four months already. Still I wanted to share some links.
Women’s Studies programs [...]
Tonight’s full moon will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon.
This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion [...]
I missed our astronomy journal club today, so I thought I could take some of that time I “saved” and invest it here in talking about what is journal club.
In the sciences, you generally finish classes in your second year of graduate school, and are not likely to take more. Teach more yes, but not [...]
Although I mostly shop online, I still get catalogs in the mail — most of which have websites I can then visit to actually shop. I’ll look at a catalog in a way I won’t look at online spam, so I guess they’re still effective. Once in a long while I order things, sometimes a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>I recently sold a short story to World-Fantasy-Award-winning editor Ekaterina Sedia for publication in Running with the Pack, an anthology of werewolf stories. I don’t write short stories that often, but had an idea for this one I wanted to do, and wanted to take a break from the science fiction, because I also do [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>I was just thinking of, or trying to think of, video games with good science that teach a little science. As usual, I tend to think of physics and astronomy, and the things that occur to me first are usually down this line of thinking. I know that I’ve missed a lot of PC games [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments »>Classic moments. There is a B-movie lover in me, and these are my mistresses…
I grew up in St. Louis and as a teenager went to the Tivoli in University for their “Golden Turkey Award” weekends. One reason I am not normal…
I’ve really fallen down on the blogging this week. I’m a momentum fiction writer and I suppose that I’m a momentum blogger. I just never missed days very often so it took a little time to discover this. Moreover, my sleeping schedule has been off, way off, this week, and I am teaching a new [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>Some travel, associated jet lag, and the first week of classes have slowed me down. Getting on top of things again!
An article about my buddy Brian Malow, science comdeian. Can there be too many of these? Didn’t think so…
And here’s a budding science comedienne, Felicia Day, in a video about colliding galaxies:
(And there is a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>I’m teaching introductory astronomy for science majors this semester and I will from time to time be posting about some topics related to my course. Like now.
In astronomy, we have a false model of the sky called the “celestial sphere” that is a handy way of thinking of motions of stars in the sky. There [...]
It’s a fun game, and harder than I thought it would be, both because the list is subjective and because it turns out hard to do with the time pressure. I scored only in the high 30s when I thought I should at least break 50. It’s embarrassing, but I got the top 10 except [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>I love the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy. His mother, wonderfully played by Kathy Bates, sees the Devil in everything, much the way the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live would blame things on Satan.
Those are comedies, with ridiculous and exaggerated characters played for humor. Or…are they?
Unfortunately the religious extreme exaggerate themselves in real life, [...]