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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
The Hard SF Writer’s Bookshelf
March 26th, 2008
Last summer at the Launch Pad workshop, I brougt in my main reference bookshelf for writing space-based hard science fiction. This list is by no means complete (I have books stashed everywhere and loaned out and whatever…who knows where they all end up?) . Here are the results:
Bennett, Jeffrey O., and G. Seth Shostak. Life in the Universe. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Pearson Addison Wesley, 2007.
Berry, Adrian. The Giant Leap : Mankind Heads for the Stars. London: Headline, 1999.
Bova, Ben, and Tony Lewis. Space Travel. 1st ed, Science Fiction Writing Series. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1997.
Darling, David J. Life Everywhere : The Maverick Science of Astrobiology. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Drake, Frank D., and Dava Sobel. Is Anyone out There? : The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, 1992.
Gillett, Stephen Lee, and Ben Bova. World-Building, Science Fiction Writing Series. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 1996.
Grady, M. M. Astrobiology. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.
Grinspoon, David. Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life. Ecco, 2003.
Harrison, Albert A. Spacefaring : The Human Dimension. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
Kaler, James B. Extreme Stars : At the Edge of Creation. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Kondo, Yoji. Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generation Space Ships. Burlington, Ont.: Apogee Books, 2003.
Lewis, John S. Mining the Sky : Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1996.
Lunine, Jonathan Irving. Astrobiology : A Multidisciplinary Approach. San Franciso: Pearson Addison Wesley, 2005.
Macvey, John W. Interstellar Travel : Past, Present, and Future. 1st Scarborough House trade pbk. ed. Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1991.
Mallove, Eugene F., and Gregory L. Matloff. The Starflight Handbook : A Pioneer’s Guide to Interstellar Travel, Wiley Science Editions. New York: Wiley, 1989.
Mullane, R. Mike. Do Your Ears Pop In Space and 500 Other Surprising Questions About Space Travel. Wiley, 1997.
Savage, Marshall T. The Millennial Project : Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.
Stine, G. Harry. Living in Space : A Handbook for Work & Exploration Beyond the Earth’s Atmosphere. 1st ed. New York: M. Evans and Co., 1997.
Tribble, Alan C. The Space Environment : Implications for Spacecraft Design. Rev. and expanded ed. Princeton, N.J. ; Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Walter, William J. Space Age. 1st ed. New York: Random House, 1992.
Woodmansee, Laura S. Sex in Space. Burlington, Ont., Canada: CG Publishing, Inc., 2006.
There are a lot more great books out there, but this is a big chunk of one of my bookshelves.
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March 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Bova, Ben, and Tony Lewis. Space Travel. 1st ed, [...]
Really?
I’d recommend something like http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html
or at least something with equations (Pournelle had a great two parter on this back in the 1970s but he’s never reprinted it).
For people who don’t want to do the math, I’d recommend jaqar’s swing-by calculator.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
I’d recommend Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience, edited by Ben R. Finney and Eric M. Jones, published in 1985 as the writeup of a conference of how human experiences on earth might translate into space.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Yeah, Space Travel isn’t the best, but it’s on my shelf anyway. For rockets/orbits, I can grab my physics textbooks. The Spaceflight Handbook came in handy when I needed the relativistic rocket equation, which isn’t found in very many places and wasn’t trivial for me to derive.
Thanks for the suggestion, Martin. I don’t know that particular book but it sounds interesting. Not that many books treat people in space. Usually they’re more nuts and bolts.
Maybe I’ll work on this list in the future and created an annotated bibliography as a more general resource.
March 27th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Dang.
A friend sent me the link to this item. Actually, it was Winchell Chung, the man behind the Project Rho/Atomic Rocket site mentioned above.
Now that I see your list (I have probably a 50% match in titles, and the other 50% I have titles that are similar in subject, but not a match in book) I find that I’m going to have to pick up some of your books!
The wallet cringes…
June 14th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
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July 16th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
[...] here are some useful links to useful resources, including the slides for a number of Mike Brotherton’s [...]
May 17th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Thanks for these links!
June 29th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
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