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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Recently I blogged about the five qualities required to be a scientist. I realized I left one out, thinking the categories of dedication and curiosity covered it in some fashion, but they don’t quite do it. The sixth quality is love of science. Love of science and your particular chosen field are what leads to […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »>Neil Tyson’s Ten Favorite Things About the Universe A few of his are a few of mine. Perhaps I’ll enumerate and post my own list later. Share/Bookmark
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>I’ve refereed a couple of papers recently, and had several papers refereed, with a variety of results that has had me thinking a lot about peer review lately. I personally know the chief editors of a couple of the leading journals in astronomy and have had the chance to discuss the job with them one-on-on […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »>There’s an easy answer to this question, and a better but more challenging answer. The easy answer is that when you’re just poking around, you might discover something important. A number of very important discoveries have been made that could not have easily been anticipated. Plastics and penicillin are two major serendipitous discoveries. My field, […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>There was a time in the 1980s in comic books where superheroes had to be retooled to make them cooler, often by adding “dark” in front of their name. For example, Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns helped revive Batman as a leading character. In the 1990s, that trend hit cosmology with “dark […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I really liked this article: SPACE.com — SETI: Is It Worth It? This article mirrors my thoughts on basic research and a lot of the points made apply not to just SETI, but to astronomy in general. It behooves us as a curious and thoughtful people to take some time and effort to look around […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>Here’s one site about becoming a scientist: Cool Careers in Science What does it take to become a professional scientist? To get into graduate school, persevere, collect a PhD and land a job in the field? A lot of things, but not all obvious to the uninitiated. I used to like to tell people that […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 188 Comments »>So I got another one of those emails today asking me to do some community service. Astronomical community service. It happens all the time and every professional astronomer is expected to contribute semi-regularly. Often the contribution is relatively minor, like reviewing a paper for one of the journals like Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>I’d intended to follow-up this month on last month’s entry on dark matter, and do something similar about dark energy. I will do that in the future, either here or on my own website, but I left it a little late (blame a friend of mine for distracting me, and she knows who she is). […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>The Point by Mike Brotherton “Do you remember the day we met?” Her question filled his mind, ever so slowly, as his mind spanned several light seconds and their spatial overlap was not perfect. There was also an echo that indicated his photonic synapses were losing coherence faster than he had anticipated. The end was […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »>This originally ran at www.sfnovelists.com on September 14. Putting it here for my own personal archive. Enjoy! I’m a scientist, a professional astronomer, who writes hard science fiction. I wish it weren’t called “hard†because that makes it sound difficult, when it’s more fun and understandable than most people think. The “hard†really refers to […]
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »>As an educator, scientist, and science fiction writer, I often look at things from several perspectives. During my years of workshopping stories, I noticed that some otherwise good stories got some strong, negative reactions for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of the writing, characters, plot, or setting. It had to do […]
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »>