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
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The Astronomer and the Carpet Cleaner

August 4th, 2009

Still working on that Mooney post I alluded to yesterday, but I was thinking of this encounter I once had with a carpet cleaner. I don’t think I’ve posted about it before.

I was in graduate school and it was about 1994, and I was in the apartment I shared with another grad student waiting for the carpet cleaner to finish up. He was a guy in his late 30s or into his 40s. We got to talking after he was done and he was telling me he used to be a songwriter, and had had a couple of songs performed by people I’d heard of break into the top 40, but that in the long run it hadn’t paid well enough consistently enough. He asked me what I did. When I told him I was working on my PhD in astronomy, he got really interested.

He started asking me all sorts of questions about black holes, galaxy formation. Not just simple questions, but questions that indicated he’d done quite a bit of reading and thinking. His enthusiasm was great, this ex-songwriting carpet cleaner you might never expect it from. Normal guy, but smart, creative, and inquisitive.

And a cloud passed in front of his face, and that enthusiasm vanished in an instant.

“My wife,” he said. “She’s blonde, big tits, gorgeous, but I can’t talk to her about any of this stuff. She likes shopping and make-up and TV.”

He recovered and asked a few more questions, but reality had sunk in on him a bit too much.

And I was left there thinking about how our science discoveries touched some regular people, and how others couldn’t be more oblivious, and how perhaps the two types shouldn’t get married. At least not if they expect to get their intellectual conversation from each other. I’m going to remember how regular people do care about this stuff, despite John McCain’s planetarium putdowns and association with Joe the Plumber. Joe the Carpet Cleaner wants that planetarium to work, and it’s important in his life.

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