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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This is the subject of a new Mind-Meld post over at sfsignal.com, which I contributed to: Mike Brotherton Mike Brotherton is the author of the hard science fiction novels Spider Star (2008) and Star Dragon (2003), the latter being a finalist for the Campbell award. He’s also a professor of astronomy at the University of […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>The Hugo awards are based on fan voting for various science fiction and fantasy categories, such as best novel. Hugo winners have always been part of my ongoing reading list my entire life. First of all, one of the things that’s right this year: my buddy Jay Lake is one of the hosts of the […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments »>I just finished redecorating my student computer lab, replacing my old Demotivator posters from despair.com (great but have been up for 8+ years) with science fiction movie posters: It occurs to me I should have used the power of the internet to get some other ideas, although I like my choices. I’ve still got a […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »>A friend sent me a link to an article at Physics Today about The Big Bang Theory. The premise of the article was to ask if the comedy could do more than make people laugh, and to propose it could educate them at the same time. Here is the lead: Could scientists help the cause […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments »>I wrote this entry as a guest post for the SFWA blog, and it is now available there. I’ll include it here as well below. For long-time and regular readers, you’ll see elements of previous posts. I’ve culled together ten things that I think are helpful resources (a few of these “things” actually include multiple […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>We’ve just had a major announcement concerning first results from NASA’s Kepler Mission. Before providing links to the details and reactions to the details, let me describe what the mission does and what it will continue to do. Kepler is basically just a big digital camera in space that takes pictures of a field of […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>There was a recent short NYT article called “The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction” by Hugo-Award winning Paolo Bacigalupi that said: I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart. and …our children will inherit a world significantly depleted and damaged […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments »>When I was a kid, I collected rocks. One of the rock-related items I bought was a sheet of cardboard labeled Mohs Scale of Hardness. Talc is a one, while diamond is a ten. Tooth enamel is apparently a five. My card didn’t have a diamond on it when I bought it, but an encouraging […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments »>By monster, I’m talking generally about non-human, non-supernatural creatures that want to kill you and/or eat you, so this excludes vampires, werewolves, Freddy Kruger, and the like. I’m really biased toward giant monsters, or alien creatures from under the water or from outer space, although it’s hard to draw the line on these. By modern, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »>Historically women have been less likely to enter the hard sciences than men, and similarly less likely to write hard science fiction. Happily, some do, and do it well, in my opinion. When I talk about hard science fiction, I mean stories in which science is central to the story, doesn’t smell too much like […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments »>Who the crap knows what aliens are going to be like? I don’t, but let me imagine that aliens who have the longevity and technology to learn about us will be rational and not arbitrary in the same ways that we are. Here are things I suspect they won’t understand, and might even believe to […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »>When I was a kid (yeah, I’m feeling like an old fart today), science fiction was Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, and Frederick Pohl’s Gateway. Asimov still had his robots running around, even if Heinlein’s efforts seemed less about space travel and more about making it with his mother. […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »>