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...
Read More.
"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 Starship Century Symposium was an event last month that I really wanted to attend, but lacked the money and time to go. A number of my friends were there, on the science and science fiction sides both, and it just looked really fun. One of the nicer things about living in the 21st century [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>Let’s fight the local internet and see how this goes… An article about the Kepler’s Dozen anthology I’m in. More than just last week’s press release. Is the world improving despite our grouchy dogmas? David Brin is on the right track here, and I concur. Also an interesting bit about METI. On budget-conscious aliens… An [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>There was a really great documentary on the History Channel tonight called Star Trek: Secrets of the Universe. I’m sure it’ll be on another half dozen times this week. There’s a lot of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues on the show (e.g. David Brin, Alex Filippenko, Geoff Marcy, and others). Now, it covers a lot [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>Alan Alda wants scientists to cut out the jargon. It’s hard, I know, because the jargon expresses the ideas succinctly and accurately, which every day language fails to do simultaneously. But if it’s an issue of being understood by the general public, we have to try. There appears to be more than 20,000 people who [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>Over at Amazing Stories, I wrote about ten science fiction movies that are really fantasy. Also there, Steve Davidson rants a bit, appropriately in my opinion, about the proliferation of non-science fiction science fiction. Centauri Dreams on robotic replicators. Following up on yesterday’s Joe Barton quote, here’s more of his deep thoughts. Another follow-up. Michael [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>I have some thoughts on Alien Parameter Space over at Amazing Stories. A nice, clear summary about arguments why you may never upload your mind into a computer. Some are not big obstacles in my opinion, although others might be. Where no search engine has gone before. Google aims for Star Trek. Phil Plait’s take [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »>Here’s the trailer for the movie: I like it that Tom Cruise seems to take on roles in movies like this. Let me call them ‘Future Dick’ — Philip K. Dick style stories in which the nature of reality, or at least personal reality, is uncertain. Minority Report, Vanilla Sky, etc. The visuals were great. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Here’s an interesting article about the political soul of science fiction, conveniently cast as left vs. right. I’m going to trash the concept of this article a bit, but bear in mind that I do find it interesting and thoughtful. I mean, the author of the article even agrees with me that this is in [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>Evil Dead was pretty good as a classic supernatural gorefest. The science behind why spoilers are so horrible. I won’t say more. The most ridiculous scene in Jurassic Park according to paleontologists. Warning: SPOILERS. The worst thing Obama could say on climate change. I think that’s exaggeration, but judge for yourself. Science and research hit [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>WordPress ate my last post, and I was going to let it go, but fuck it. I post these for myself as much as anyone else. I can find things of interest better if I know I linked to them on a Starlinks post as google isn’t perfect and requires my memory. While I still [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>The fucking website or my computer or human error I didn’t notice ate an hour’s work. Not easily reproduced as I usually delete my links from my browser once I put them in the post. Where did they go? I don’t really know. So fuck it for this week. Sorry. Share/Bookmark
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>This is the short story collection that has stories with settings based on confirmed exoplanets discovered by NASA’s Kepler Mission. Table of Contents Middle Ground by Mike Brotherton Turtle Soup by Laura Givens The Gloom of Tartarus by Gene Mederos A Glint off the Glass by Rick Novy Omega Shadows by Carol Hightshoe Daniel and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>