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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
Flashback to Flashforward
September 25th, 2009
I caught the premiere of the TV show Flashforward last night, and I really enjoyed it. I’m not going to do a review here with spoilers or anything like that, but I did want to encourage people to watch it and to make some comparisons to the novel by Robert Sawyer that the show is based on. (Interesting to see that the amazon rank is way up to #231 today, too! Good going Sawyer! Bring in some more fans to science fiction!)
The show uses the basic premise of the book, but all the characters are totally different, which has some pluses and minuses. It looks like it’s going to be more of a mystery than in the book, and less physics speculation. CERN and its Large Hadron Collider, the primary setting of the novel, is not part of the show at all. Part of me is sad about that, but in some ways what they’re doing makes a lot more sense for an ongoing series.
Also of interest is that the flashforward is only six months, not 20 years, as in the novel. Six months is a great time period for a seasonal tv show.
I got some email from one of the show’s promoters that I’m going to share. Apparently they’re going to add a little bit to an encore presentation tonight, there are also a bunch of high-quality websites related to the show. Here’s the relevant parts:
Did you catch the premiere of ABC’s FlashForward last night? If not, it’s not too late to see the best new drama on TV as ABC will be airing a special encore presentation tonight at 8/7c (and it just might contain some added material…).
If you did tune in, you undoubtedly noticed that FlashForward is riddled with small clues that give you insight into what the season will bring. A new video series at ABC.com gives viewers access to the show creators as they gather all the details that will help unravel the mystery of the Global Blackout.
Also be sure to check out the FlashForward Experience, share your FlashForward on the Mosaic Collective’s site, and watch exclusive clips in the Augmented Reality experience.
Here’s a sneak peak that they’ve posted on youtube:
Anyway, I liked it a lot and look forward to where they’re going to take the show. I was sad to see Life on Mars cancelled after only one season. I’m optimistic Flashforward will have a longer run.
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September 25th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Yup, definately looked cool. I too was waiting for them to cite CERN… maybe they still might?
October 4th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I finally got around to seeing it on Hulu and was thoroughly impressed by it. It definitely keeps the spirit of the book and they did just enough to change it to keep original readers interested and has enough drama and is grounded enough in reality that I think it has the potential to be a big show.
The ending of the first episode certainly has me curious as to how they’re going to treat the solution of the flash forward.