Omnivore

Three scientists: Veg - vegetarian, Aquilon - omnivore, and Cal - needs blood on the fungal planet Nacre, where they investigate disappearances and encounter the Mantas, sentient, manta-ray-like fungi who view the humans through their dietary habits, leading to dangerous interactions and a deeper exploration of life, food, and survival on a world dominated by a third kingdom of fungi, ultimately revealing Nacre's secrets to a government agent back on Earth.

Generally speaking, I've been happier with Anthony's earlier works than with his later ones. It's just seemed to me that he had some good, mostly original ideas early in his career, and later on he's just kept going back the well again and again and again...

So I was pretty disappointed with Omnivore. The book was slow to get going even though it's very short. The characters never seemed properly developed to me. The big stunner at the end was so unsurprising to me that I had to go back and reread the whole section just to figure out what I missed. Then the correlations between our intrepid explorers and the Herb, Omni, and Carn on the fungus world seemed more than a little stretched...

I thought some of the social commentary was good. I show more actually have personally thought that moving construction underground is the way to go, so it was nice to see that Anthony (at least at one point) held the same views. Some of his takes on overpopulation was interesting... But other than that, there wasn't much depth to the story.

Read 4/2007 show less

Jeez...a book this short shouldn't be so agonizing to get through. I can see why I gave up 40 years ago. While there is science and imagination, there is Anthony's annoying style. It didn't get interesting until 2/3 through.

I'm going to try Orn, but I might not make it to OX.

Better Than I Remembered

I read this book back when I was a teen. Rereading it gave me a much better understanding and appreciation of Piers Anthony's story telling skills. I am ready to re-read the next book in this series.

This short first-contact novel is quite well written and compelling, especially for sf of its age (1968), and it has some interesting things to say. The alien lifeforms found on Nacre are unusual, and good fictional creations. However, the peculiarities of the main human characters seem contrived, and I dislike the way the story ends, which I find both unconvincing and uncongenial.

It’s quite a memorable book, but not one of my favourites. I like it better at the start than at the finish.

Piers Anthony has ability, but he also seems a rather peculiar man himself, though I don’t know much about him and haven’t read many of his books.

A minority of readers accuse this book of sexism, but I don’t think the problem here is sexism, show more exactly. In this book and its sequels, the male and female characters relate to each other on a more or less equal basis; but they interrelate rather awkwardly, and they seem quite preoccupied with sex although they hardly ever do it. I think the author is just not very good at human relationships. Like some other sf authors, he seems more comfortable with other species than with humans. show less