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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
List of Science and Science Fiction Posts
May 23rd, 2009
It’s getting hard for me to find things here, and I know the number of people coming year has grown a lot in recent months, so I’m going to take a few minutes to make a “best of” entry to help me and others find my posts relating science and science fiction. A few are on the “most popular posts” sidebar, and I’ll link to a bunch of the others below.
Why Science in Science Fiction?
Science and Science Fiction: Time Travel
Science and Science Fiction: The Cold Equations
Questions about Science and Science Fiction: My SF Writer Answers
Questions about Science and Science Fiction: My Science Blogger Answers
Astronomy in Science Fiction: “Lobsters” by Charlie Stross
Bad Science in Science Fiction Movies (poll)
Good and Bad Science in Science Fiction on TV and in the Movies
The Difference Between Hard and Mundane Science Fiction
Science in My Science Fiction: Literacy [sfnovelists]
What Scientists Can Learn From Science Fiction
Scientific Accuracy in Stories
Five Science Fiction Movies that get the Science Right
Science and Science Fiction: The Star
Science and Science Fiction: Nanotechnology
Science and Science Fiction: The Moons of Mars in Watchmen
Science and Science Fiction: What Exactly is Teleportation?
Science and Science Fiction: Humans as Batteries in The Matrix
Science and Science Fiction: Artificial Gravity in 2001
Science and Science Fiction: Jumper (see also here where the publicist tells me off)
Science and Science Fiction: Books vs Movies
Humans Exposed to Vacuum in Movies
Synergies in Storytelling and Science
One Thing Wrong with Space Movies
Fossilized Science in Science Fiction
OK, that made me a bit tired. Now maybe it won’t be so hard for me to find some of these when I want them (great material for me to mine for public talks and some presentations to students and Launch Pad).
There are a couple of Larry Niven short stories I keep meaning to write about. I’ll get to them, sooner or later. And the new Star Trek (Phil Plait did a good job but I want to rant about a few things some more anyway), and a few other movies.
Any requests?
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May 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
How about a search box? I’ll get one installed today while I try to figure out some other things for your blog here.
May 24th, 2009 at 10:16 am
A search box would be great. I wound up going through most things by hand, as google did not turn up most of this even with “science and science fiction” in the post titles.
May 24th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I think something interesting to write about would be science in video games. Science fiction, along with fantasy, are inexorably connected with video games. Hell the very first computer game, Space War, was science fiction. Now like movies, there are plenty of games that mess up science, though they tend to have the excuse of it serving gameplay rather than the story. Though I’m fairly certain there are plenty of games out there that get it mostly right.
You certainly don’t strike me as one who spends his free time playing games, and even the ones you would play I doubt would be something that requires hours upon hours of your time to play the game. I’m genuinely curious about the science in science fiction games, however I haven’t found much to show that someone has done the research for it. Since doing this kind of research with video games will be time consuming I don’t expect you to do anything about this soon, though maybe you have a colleague who loves video games and would be willing to do a guest spot.
Some games I’m interested in of their science are Mass Effect, Fallout 3 (alternate reality based on the 1950s vision for the future), Dead Space, Assassin’s Creed (using DNA to view an ancestor’s memories), Bioshock (alternate 1960s reality with an underwater city and gene splicing), Homeworld Cataclysm and Homeworld 2, Half-Life 1 and 2, Deus Ex, and the Halo trilogy. I feel those would be a good place to start as they’re rooted, more or less in science rather than combining them with fantasy elements that dominates a lot of science fiction based games.
May 25th, 2009 at 4:12 am
One thing I’ve wndered about - do science fiction writers have weirder dreams than most people?
It seems to me tha since I started writing science fiction my dreams have gotten pretty weird.
I’ve recently been published in the US, the link to my author page is: http://www.StrategicBookPublishing.com/ScienceFictionandAlternateHistory.html
Cheers
May 25th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Travis, if you think I don’t play video games I’m not being myself here quite enough! I used to write them in high school and have certainly been an addict. Favorites include Diablo, Heroes of Might and Magic, etc.
I don’t know much about many of the ones you suggest. Eric Nylund, author of Halo novelizations, is a friend and he gets his science right usually. Not sure about the game itself. Marc Laidlaw, a writer for the Halflife games, will be attending Launch Pad this summer, so I know he takes his science seriously.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
David, my dreams, for what it is worth, have always been extremely weird. Superpowers, aliens, machines powering the universe, etc. Hard to know how to conduct a scientific study, however…
May 27th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Haha sorry to under estimate you! Yeah I love Diablo as well, the second sequel is looking pretty nice.
Anyway, I think you should definitely check out the game Mass Effect. It’s a pretty epic sci-fi game, that seems to have a lot of its science in order, though it does possess a sort of warp drive called ‘Mass Effect’ that’s powered, I believe by dark energy or something similar to it. There are couple of downsides like mostly bipedal aliens and ones who speak English as well as all-terrain armored personnel carrier called the Mako that controls like crap. However the story is done pretty well especially when it comes to picking a moral side. I definitely recommend it. It’s on the Xbox 360 and PC and it takes about 40 hours to complete, at least it did for me on one play through, though it’ll be a bit shorter if side quests are avoided.
And another high recommendation is Fallout 3. An alternate reality based on the 1950s version of the future. A pretty good role playing game with moral choices as well, though a bit buggy with some random crashes here and there. It’s also on the Xbox 360 and PC as well as the Playstation 3.