Most Popular Posts
Search
-
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...
Read More. -
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
Spider Star Officially Released, Free Sample Chapters
March 4th, 2008
My new novel Spider Star is officially released today. It’s gotten very good reviews so far from sf aficionados, and more mixed reviews from more general venues that still tout the strength of innovative ideas, a unique setting, and accurate science. The book has been favorably compared to Larry Niven at his best, Niven and Pournelle’s Mote in God’s Eye, and Jack McDevitt. I’m happy with those comparisons, as I’m a big fan of those guys. I’m more than thrilled to be mentioned in the same sentence with them, as their work helped make me want to write myself.
I’ve uploaded what I hope is very close to a final version of the prologue and first four chapters: ss5_first4.htm.
I plan to post something about the science of Spider Star in the near future, exploring different aspects of the story from that perspective. I am a hard sf writer, but not a mundane sf writer (see this post for more), which means that I don’t write anything I know to be scientifically wrong, but I will include some very speculative science. There’s a lot about dark matter, for instance, in the book. I feel pretty confident that dark matter is real, but its properties remain uncertain. There are key points of the story that rely on stellar evolution and very long time scales. I think that’s realistic as long as we don’t destroy ourselves, and if we do, there won’t be much human-based far-future science fiction. I’m optimistic about our future, even though not everyone is as science-positive as I think they should be.
Anyway, this is a very happy day for me and I hope many of you reading will enjoy the book in the near future. I started writing because I loved the experience of reading and wanted to share my own worlds with others, the way the writers I loved shared their worlds with me. Spider Star brings together a lot of diverse elements, ranging from dark matter to the politics of the Middle East, speaking to my own science interests and to current events simultaneously. The world building is unique as far as I know, and more detailed than the vast majority of science fiction, a strength of mine. I hope the rest lives up to that strength.
Please be encouraged to submit reviews to amazon.com or other appropriate venues. Thanks!
Related Posts
Related Posts
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
<
March 4th, 2008 at 7:19 am
And Congratulations! It always seems like forever before it’s a book.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Congratulations indeed! Do a happy happy joy joy dance!
March 4th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Well, forever applies especially well to THIS book anyway…I’m in a much better place than where I was a few years ago and stalled. A much happier and productive place, although I’m not quite sure I have a happy happy joy joy dance. Maybe a happy happy joy joy grin.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
eu amo esse filme
July 1st, 2008 at 6:02 am
coole al pacino filme downloaden…
Wo kann ich filme downloaden?…