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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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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
Sickly Starlinks
April 22nd, 2009
More for me than the starlinks. Truth be told, my digestive system hasn’t been really happy for a few weeks, off and on. It’s probably just been the changing diet and excessively spicy food (for me). In the last month I’ve gone from Brazil, to the U.S., to China, to Bangkok, back to China. In the last day or two I definitely knocked it around a little harder than I should have, however, and it’s just been a slow, crappy couple of days.
Anyway, the soft white belly of international travel. Onward to the starlinks.
Yesterday I talked about how women find intelligent men attractive. Or at least famous intelligent men. Today I link to everyjoe.com, which tells us the 5 qualities men look for in women. While the qualities espoused there have some merit, they’re pretty 1950s and I’m not at all sure these should be the top five, and conspicuously absent are things like intelligence, a fun personality, common values, or talent of any kind.
My buddy, writer, photographer, editor, and webmaster Jeremy Tolbert wants to solve your problems. And he’s giving away a book (Federations edited by John Joseph Adams) to spur suggestions. And even if you don’t have any problems for Jeremy to solve, you should check out his fine story, now posted online: The Kansas Jayhawk vs. the Midwest Monster Squad. Totally awesome.
And continuing in the vein of giant monsters, how about giant robot spiders overrunning Japan? I’m not so sure Jeremy’s vision is that unrealistic…
On vampire ecology…or why the vampires need Buffy.
Who goes there? by John Campbell is available on audio now. It’s a classic story, one of my favorites. The basis for the movie The Thing.
Fat people and their contribution to global warming. Some discussion about lifestyle choice vs. genetics vs. other related issues, of some interest. After all the travel, I must agree that Americans look inflated compared to people around the world, on average, and there must be some ways to improve things. I wonder if a tax levied on soda and fast food failing some healthiness threshold, applied toward the health system, wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s got its negatives, but when I see McDonalds in every country in the world I have ever visited, it’s like America’s secret dirty war.
More on why Fox News sucks. Of course they run with growing Antarctic ice (despite ice shelves breaking up there) as a way to cast doubt on global warming. I tend to use the term global warming, but global climate change is more appropriate. Overall temperatures are rising globally, but that doesn’t have to be true, and is not expected to be true, in every location. Here’s New Scientist’s take and an appropriate explanation. Fox News and their anti-gay war mongering knuckle draggers need a taste of their own foul medicine, at least metaphorically. [Don't click if you're easily shocked or depressed about what is happening in Iraq.] When Fox’s BS is taken seriously, we get lovely young ladies like Miss California who really think they have their own opinions about gay marriage and that they’re not unreasonable. In the 1950s I’m sure her grandmother would have said the same things about interracial marriages. Sorry about the rant. I’m in China and literally sick to my stomach.
But let’s continue with the socially conservative morons who conflate everything they don’t like into a conspiracy of liberals and science: Darwin’s Tree of Death. Hey, idiots took evolution and used it to justify evil acts (AKA social darwinism), something the religious never, ever, ever did, so who cares if it is true? Let’s get rid of it and go to church and be blissfully ignorant. Too many these days lack intellectual integrity, and don’t seem to even recognize it as a good thing.
Some happier, more fun things now.
Twitter with your brain! Literally. Look Ma, no hands!
Nazi experiments, cave paintings, and the return of extinct aurochs. Cool and weird.
A significant upgrade to a British radio telescope, now E-Merlin. Some informative stuff about radio interferometry.
Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell is still spouting off about UFOs and aliens, without having any compelling evidence. I want to believe, but dammit Jim, I’m a scientist, not a Fox News viewer.
Long-distance couples to test “intimacy device.” Warning, not nearly as sexy or X-rated as I was hoping for.
OK, now that I got those links out of my system, I’m feeling a little better. Going to look for some McDonalds here for dinner. I’m sure the processed white bread will have my overweight American system feeling better in no time.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
For a slightly more reputable bit of research on “what [gender] want in [gender]“, see Buss & Schmidt’s Sexual Strategies Theory (http://tinyurl.com/d679r3). Arguable, but interesting.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:18 pm
That looks like a quality professional paper, Craig. Readable, too.
What always gets me about the interplay between this stuff is that evolution does seem to drive our attractions and strategies, but then our intellects can do end runs so easily to exploit or trick them (e.g. condoms, prostitution, make-up, lying about our intentions, cosmetic surgery, pornography, etc.). If our genes could, they’d probably knock us upside the head for taking the tricks to the next level.