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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
Spectacular Launch Pad Starlinks
July 24th, 2009
During the week of Launch Pad, the participants shared a bunch of links. Often these were relevant to astronomy, sometimes not so much, but all part of a super experience. Here are the best of these. Some really fantastic stuff here. Sorry for so many, but so many are great.
Starting with one of the most moving things to come out of Launch Pad, a quote from one of the participants:
You know you’re really, really meant to be into science when seeing the moons of Jupiter for the first time makes you cry for the utter beauty of it. Thank you to those who shared their expertise and their telescope for giving me the gift of the sky. I’ll never forget this night.
Makes me want to cry, too…
Brian Malow, science comedian, in a Time.com video about Hawking, the Moon, and Beyond. Good job on the graphics, Tara. Good stuff.
NASA offers orbital photos of Apollo landing sites. The deniers will deny more, no doubt. Silly people.
Lucius Shepard’s Apollo Memory.
The headline says it all. Awesome Onion bit.
Some lunar landing denier DVDs.
Phil Plait on visiting Wyoming for Launch Pad. Also Ed Lerner.
Cthulu looking dejected after being denied a library card.
Watch Richard Feynman lectures for free. Thanks, Bill Gates.
Jupiter gets hit, again! Nice to see my friend and old boss’s wife Imke de Pater keeping busy.
In praise of insignificance, by Jennifer Ouellette at Twisted Physics. Need to add this blog to the blog roll.
The giant eye of the galaxy NGC 1097. This is an infrared image of a starbursting Seyfert galaxy and is pretty cool.
Was the speed of light higher in the early universe?
Annie Hall and cosmological depression:
Journey to the Center of the Milky Way (video).
Top 75 Spaceships in movies and TV from Den of Geek.
Science is supercool! Except for mixing Marvel and DC (the horror!), this is a pretty cool comic.
Physics of a Threesome. Geek humor.
One by Conrad Williams, a book opening with a Gamma Ray Burst.
A really nice little video showing the relative sizes of planets and stars:
Nice webpage for some relativity information.
Video games inspired by summer movies (mostly science fiction).
Habitable Planets for Man, free downloadable book, reference for science fiction writers.
SINGS Hubble Tuning Fork poster (galaxy classification). Pretty damn awesome.
Finishing up with a promo for the ABC TV show FlashForward, based on a novel by Rob Sawyer (Launch Pad attendee). Looks damn cool.
Oh, one final comment for those who have read down to here. Not much information to be shared about Ridley Scott and the Forever War movie being made, but apparently Scott is really into the relativity aspect. I’m pleased by that, and really anticipate a spectacular movie.
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July 25th, 2009 at 6:37 am
re: Physics of a Threesome - why would you post the link to a site that re-posted the comic, particularly since there was no additional commentary/value involved, instead of the source site directly? http://xkcd.com/613/ is the source link.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Because that was the link I was sent and I had 20 other links I wanted to post and I’m only human. I’ve linked to xkcd directly many times. Thanks for the link.
July 26th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Mike, you find such great stuff on the net.
Thanks particularly, for Habitable Planets for Man. I’m reading Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, and the Rand book will be a nice contrast of what we’ve learned since 1964.
Sawyer called the Rand book a great bible for world building for science fiction writers, but I think new SF writers should check out Rare Earth.
July 26th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Well, in this case credit Launch Pad participants. Most come from them, and I’m just sharing what we shared.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Let’s not forget whose death dominated our minds for several days:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Inappropriate-Soundtrack-A-Space-Odessey-2001
July 26th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Well, Marc, that was special!