A World Named Cleopatra

There is a large second hand bookshop in Carnforth, near Lancaster. In its science fiction room, I found a paperback copy of a Poul Anderson work that I had not heard of before. A World Named Cleopatra contains a fourteen page Introduction and one short story by Anderson, three short stories by other authors and fictitious historical notes between the stories.

The Introduction describes the fictional planet, Cleopatra, created by Anderson, and the stories are set on Cleopatra which is both inhabited and colonised from Earth. Anderson fans know that he is capable of imagining and describing extrasolar planets in detail because he does this in several other works and many times in his long future history series, the History of Technic Civilization.

On this occasion, I will be reading anew, not rereading, before blogging. The headings in the Introduction are:

THE SUN
THE PLANET
SATELLITES
GENERAL BIOLOGY
PLANTS
ANIMALS

The Anderson story, "The Serpent In Eden," describes First Contact between colonists and natives, with the colonists cast in the role of the Serpent. The historical note between the third and fourth stories refers to Cleopatra in 3298 AD but is attributed to a Colonial Survey dated 3300 AD. Thus, the book is in miniature yet another future history series.