Sunday 28 April 2013

Cleopatra

We recognise Anderson's skills already displayed in works like the Technic History:

imagining an entire planet in metrical detail;
accounting for parallel evolution;
rationalising Earth-like features by commenting that they must be rare.

Certain details sound familiar:

Earthmen can eat some local foods but not others and need dietary supplements;
weather is hard to predict in a different environment;
global politics have changed back on Earth so that English is not the main language of the expedition.

I am still reading Anderson's introductory story for the first time.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I ordered a copy of A WORLD NAMED CLEOPATRA and hope to get it within the next five days. The only part of this book I had previously read was its Introduction, in THE MANY WORLDS OF POUL ANDERSON.

I'm also reminded of a similar round robin called MURASAKI, to which Anderson contributed both a story and an essay. And his son in law Greg Bear's contribution alo increases the "Andersonian" influence in that book. This one I do have.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

I read MURASAKI but felt that the course of the overall story was so controlled that the individual authors cannot have had much elbow room.

Paul Shackley said...

Spoiler alert for "Cleopatra II".