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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Starlinks for Tuesday June 24, 2008

June 24th, 2008

I got an upgrade to my wordpress software and that, and some late night reading (love it when a book makes me do that!) have left me being slow about the blogging.

Came across some interesting things the past several days.

Science Fiction

Some advice for DC Comics about making superhero movies and “Gaiman’s Law” that “the closer the film is to the look and feel of what people like about the comic, the more successful it is.” This, Gaiman says, is “something that Warners tends singularly to miss, and Marvel tends singularly to get right.” Warners may prove Gaiman wrong here with the forthcoming “Watchmen.” I was particularly interested in the comments about “Y the Last Man,” “Preacher” and “Wonder Woman.”

Speaking of Wonder Woman, here’s a link to casting for a reality show featuring beautiful women in engineering with brains. Smart women are wonderful indeed. And a discussion with pictures of why nerdy girls are hot with the original article cited.

One of my former grad students thought I was a perfect match for Lisa Loeb, often-mentioned nerdy girl. She’s cute and talented, for sure.

An older article about the ghetto of science fiction, with a British perspective.

io9 addresses the issue of the bendy bullets in Wanted.

Top 25 Babes of Sci-Fi. Also the top 13, starting with Dana Scully.

And while we’re here, why is it my links to Why Don’t More Girls Dress as Phoenix and Muffy the Vampire Layer get so many hits? They’re quick, nothing links. A little titillating, perhaps, but please, is the internet as sensationalist happy as TV news?

Science

Another article about the threat from Cern-created black holes, which I think is bunk, with more support from a paper on the astrophysics preprint server. Fear mongering is always popular. Chicken Little, I’m calling you out.

An article about the 375th anniversary of Galileo renouncing his views under pressure from the church. I’m going to take the opportunity to revise some of my own public statements on this topic, which I have expressed in class lectures in the past in an effort to see all sides and to not rock the boat. The article is bogus. The only fault lies with the assholes in the church. Galileo could be as obnoxious as you can imagine, and his rivals as obnoxious and pissed off as you can imagine, but the only fault in the matter lies with the church. Freedom of speech is about protecting obnoxious speech, right or wrong. When it’s right, as it was in Galileo’s case, the issue of how obnoxious the guy was doesn’t matter, and this revisionist apologetic history is bullshit. Suck it up when you’re wrong. Apologize and mean it. Don’t say, “Well, he was right and we were wrong, but he was an asshole so deserves some of the blame.” That makes you an asshole, Christian History Institute. I suppose you think 9/11 was also America’s fault, yes? You ought to be asking people for forgiveness rather than invisible sky wizards, okay? People respond to reason better than revisionist bullshit.

And we have James Hansen of NASA calling out the Energy Companies who are compared, with good cause, to the tobacco industry. Both have heavily used lobbyists to invalidly cast doubt on good science to support their destructive profit-hungry enterprises. You bastards!

Astronomy helps pinpoint the Trojan War.

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