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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My Take on Top Five Space Stories of 2008 from Space.com

December 23rd, 2008

I like space.com in general and their choices here, for the most part. Let me discuss and critique some of the stories, however.

1. Alien Worlds

This too was my favorite, particularly imaging several alien solar systems, which I wrote about here and here. I liked Bad Astronomy’s write-up, too. This is just the beginning. We’re going to have catalogs of alien solar systems with all sorts of information about them. Going to take a while to get there, but it’s coming, and we’ll have a good chance of figuring out in the relatively near future (decades or less) about the probability of life there.

2. Martian Life?

If the story has a question mark, I’m a lot less inclined to include it myself. Yes, we did learn a lot more about the details of Martian surface chemistry and past conditions, and that’s sort of cool. I’m burned out on all the overhyped stories about water on Mars, life on Mars, etc., when most have been far from conclusive and undeserving of the hype. I would probably not include this on my top five, but I’m also a galaxy guy and planets are too close and too well understood for me to have a huge interest. Nothing new enough for me here, and interesting enough on its own merits.

If we find compelling evidence of Martian life, current or past, that will be my top story. Not quite yet.

3. Dark Energy

I liked the work on dark energy that have lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon. This topic makes the top story when we understand its origin.

4. Black Hole Antics

Definitely a few stories this year about supermassive black holes I thought were truly of interest. I’m skeptical, however, about the ejected black hole story. That’s one interpretation of the data, and more remains to be done to make the case. This is not to disparage Stephanie Komossa’s work — I know her and have discussed it with her — but that the conclusion is prelimary. No one really looked for this until some numerical relativistists predicted it, and I really think we should have noticed observationally earlier if this sort of thing were all that common. I await my loss of skepticism, which would be cool.

5. Solving Mercury Mysteries

I’m just not that big of a planetary guy. Cool pictures, some new science, but not really doing it for me as a top story of the year given my biases.

Some overlap with my list, which is coming soon, but some differences, too.

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