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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
An Open Cluster of Starlinks
January 6th, 2009
The American Astronomical Society is having their national meeting in Longbeach, CA, this week. I’m not attending, but I do have a few students and a postdoc presenting some of our work on post-starburst quasars (you can read the abstracts online here, here, and here). Expect to see a lot of astronomy stories in the news this week. Phil Plait has some more information, including where to go online to watch press conferences from the meeting. Phil is prefacing his meeting posts with “AAS” and will likely be a good place to follow the results.
The Milky Way is big, really big. 50% larger than previously thought, perhaps, and more comparable to the Andromeda Galaxy which we used to think was the largest galaxy in the local group. I’m a little surprised we’re making such a significant revision, but it is true that it’s much easier to study galaxies outside our own than it is our own.
Extinction by interstellar dust cloud? Shades of Fred Hoyle’s sf classic The Black Cloud.
Writers respond to questions about science and fiction, including some input from yours truly.
James Wallace Harris writes about science fiction’s false assumption. Can you guess what it is? I’m not totally on board here as I think it’s a matter of time, but he makes a good case and the timescale is much longer than traditionally assumed in sf.
Top 25 Fictional Ads in Science Fiction.
CNN drops space and science as a distinct area, and Miles O’Brian is apparently out of a job. CNN wasn’t my first choice for space and science coverage, but it was for many people, and now there will be less. Continuing trends of marginalizing science news as we move into the 21st century. Luckily science is less important in our lives today than ever…
A quality FREE book about global climate change and sustainable energy from a Cambridge University professor, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David MacKay. [PDF] Hard numbers on energy and issues of sustainability. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but it is very readable and accessible, even for having a lot of hard data.
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January 6th, 2009 at 7:56 am
[...] Science Fiction’s False Assumption? — James Wallace Harris on space travel. These days, I am beginning to think the future of manned space travel is Asian. If the Euro-American axis has a role in that future, it will be as a response to Sino-Indian activity in high orbit. (Snurched from Mike Brotherton.) [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 am
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