Virgin Planet

On the planet Atlantis, founded centuries ago by a crashed female-only ship, a lost colony of women reproduce via parthenogenesis and await the legendary men who will arrive with advanced knowledge, but when lone male explorer Davis Bertram lands, they mistake him for a monster or god, forcing him to navigate their warlike, priest-ruled society to survive and prove his humanity, sparking conflict and power struggles as factions vie for his technological secrets.

An interesting book. A lone explorer discovers a planet inhabited only by women. Seems they were the second colony ship on its way to rendezvous with the men that were sent earlier, but they went off course and had to create their own civilization.

The ship they arrived on was damaged but still able to have women reproduce by parthenogenesis. There are only so many genotypes, so the women tend to fall into castes. But not all of the settlements follow that. Tech is limited, so they use swords and such for defense.

When The Man shows up, some call him monster. The Doctors who run the reproductive machines in what is left of the ship aren't too keen to admit he is a man--it would mean them giving up power.

My biggest problem with the plot show more was that so many women were attracted to him. Male ego of the writer, I expect. Anderson doesn't dip into the sexual arrangements in the man-less society. Considering the times, it would probably have been considered pornographic. There's a hint that one of the characters is involved with one of the leaders, but it's a vague hint.

Anderson includes an afterward where he lays out the sun system of this planet and how that affects the weather and the tides and also how life developed.

All-in-all and interesting gand fun quick read. Science fiction has come a long way since then. show less

It's pretty easy to dismiss this as a case of the all-too-common male-fantasy, but Poul Anderson is a commensurate world-builder - there's little that you can point out as rubbish here. The story - and it's a cracking one - holds out even at novel length, and the most puerile things turns out to be the cover and title. It's almost a reverse parody - taking a silly concept and writing a pretty good novel out of it.

Male fantasy of a spaceman landing on an entire planet of women who have built up a mythology that the men will come for them some day. They war over him and they all want to sleep with him. Hilariously good read, but so puerile.

This is one of Anderson's stories set in his earlier setting, the Psychotechnic League, though in this case the league is only significant in the opening when one of the "Cordy" administrators interviews the brash young hero and (skeptically) lets him set out alone on a scouting expedition. Before leaving, the hero tells a friend he hopes to find a planet full of beautiful women and stay awhile, and indeed he finds a planet populated entirely by women -- a culture which survived from a lost colony ship and reproduced by artificial means strictly controlled by a ruling theocracy who have built up Men to be virtually divine. Our hero signally fails to live up to this reputation,but after some disastrous attempts at intervention does show more finally contribute to the overthrow of the rulers. As for the beautiful young women, two end up flipping a coin for him. show less

Take a standard fantasy, turn it on its ear. That's what Anderson does here; the man from the advanced civilization has to rely upon women who believe him to be a 'monster' (alien), since he failed the test of manhood. Light but fun.

Davis Bertram si meritò quel che gli accadde. Non aveva forse sempre desiderato di scoprire un pianeta abitato da sole donne per sentirsi valorizzato al massimo? Be', questo è esattamente quel che gli capitò quando volle lanciarsi da solo nell'esplorazione di una zona di spazio giudicata troppo pericolosa per arrischiarvi una spedizione ufficiale. Un pianeta abitato da sole donne! E dominato da altre donne che, su quel mondo, possiedono le antiche conoscenze scientifiche di una razza progredita. Le situazioni paradossali in cui il povero Davis viene a trovarsi sono fra le più divertenti. E il castigo peggiore per lui è di venire accolto su quel mondo non come l'Uomo promesso dalle antiche leggende, ma come un Mostro da distruggere. show more Certo, Davis, dopo tante avventurose peripezie, alla fine se la cava, ma proprio per il rotto della cuffia, in un modo che non può, onestamente, venir definito del tutto onorevole per un uomo! show less