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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"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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Really interesting stuff on James Nicoll’s blog: The facts are wrong Gene Ward Smith asks what looks like a reasonable question on rec.arts.sf.written The mass-luminosity relationship for main-sequence stars was known [during] all of the Golden Age, and hence it was [known] that all of those sfnal Rigellians and Denebians were nonsensical, Was this simply […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>James Harris calls for more real science in science fiction, and discusses how there’s science as fantastic as science fiction already out there to inspire and to steal from. Steal is my word, not his, but it’s a time-honored tradition in the fiction business and the sincerest form of flattery. I remember reading about how […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>There’s a seldom-used form of science fiction that I don’t see a lot of, but I think I would like to. I’m going to call it “subtle” here for the sake of discussion, but that’s the wrong word. It’s more profound than subtle. I’d love to get to some pointers about examples. Anyway, let me […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>New Scientist says the best sf film is Blade Runner. Runners up are 2001, Solaris, and Serenity. The worst? And other categories? Worst sci-fi films: The Blob, the 1958 sci-fi/horror film starring Steve McQueen. “I saw The Blob when I was about seven years old and haven’t eaten jelly since,” said one of our staff. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>This is my opinion. I like to think it’s well-informed as an astronomer and science fiction novelist who spends way too much time thinking about such issues, but the fact is we’re too ignorant on this topic to speak with a lot of authority. If nothing is there, we won’t find anything, for instance. But […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>Mass audiences. There is a belief, apparently, among producers that to have mass appeal a story has to adhere to some societal message that isn’t offensive. This is true of more than just science fiction, and applies to more than just the message (remember the white-washed version of LeGuin’s A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA on the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>In my post about Ten Things I Hate About Science Fiction I wrote: 4. Inconsistent or illogical time travel. It seems like writers just make up rules for time travel that make no sense a lot more often than other types of stories. I mean, WTF was with that fading photograph in Back to the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>There’s a basic misconception floating around out there about the size of the universe. Astronomers trying to be accurate are probably guilty for some of this because we always hedge our bets. We know that the universe is big, really big, from Douglas Adams. He’s right, but there’s a difference between infinitely large and really […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>OK, I’ve given out a list of ten things I hate about science fiction. I love more than I hate, so time to even up the score. I doubt this post will be as popular as that post, however. We love to hate more than we love to love it seems. Anyway, onward: 1. Something […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »>There’s a long tradition of writing about utopias, or, conversely, dystopias. Societies in which everything is perfect, or perfectly awful, due to some experiment in how to live, some new technologies, or a new religion or philosophy. The purpose in writing the utopia story is often to describe how the author thinks people could get […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>It seems that massive Earth-like planets exist in other star systems, rocky bodies with masses several times higher than that of the Earth. Some scientists are trying to understand the geological structure, volcanism, outgassing, and plate tectonics. This is probably more detail than you might need to write a story, but thinking about these details […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>While there’s an argument to be made that the stupidest, most ridiculous clothes are those worn in real life, usually by clueless celebrities to red carpet events or the masses adopting some current short-lived fad (crocs, I’m taking about you!), it’s clear that we have it dumb in science fiction. I’ve got no problem with […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »>