Die Macht der Mantas

Of Man and Manta #1-3 Omnibus

by Piers Anthony

Omnibus edition comprising the entire trilogy of Omnivore, Orn, and Ox. Across time and space roamed the Three - the cripple, the woman, the man of brawn. Trying to unravel the mysteries of fantasy worlds, and accompanied always by the strange and weirdly beautiful Mantas.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Though he spent the first four years of his life in England, Piers never returned to live in his country of birth after moving to Spain and immigrated to America at age six. After graduating with a B.A. from Goddard College, he married one of his fellow students and and spent fifteen years in an assortment of professions before he began writing fiction full-time.

Piers is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and lives on a tree farm in Florida with his wife. They have two grown daughters.

Reviews

[Morgan Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Spoilers*
I enjoyed Omnivore and Orn much more than Ox, however this may be due to me becoming weary and annoyed with Anthony's writing.
Trust me when I say I will never forget that Veg is vegetarian and really strong, Aquilon can paint, especially when tired and that she is so beautiful that the two men of the group are constantly fantasizing about her, Cal is so smart but weak as all hell. You know why I'll never forget? Because I got told every two pages.
I cannot overstate how much that annoyed me throughout the series.

The books constantly reinforced that women are expected to have certain roles, especially in Ox with the introduction of Tamme.
Anthony goes out of his way to impress the idea that all the Agents are equal, in both a mental and physical sense, and that all of them have extreme control over their emotion and are vastly superior to 'normals' in all ways. Yet, despite enforcing this idea repeatedly (He loves some repetition), he happily undermines all of this in one short line: "The agent training and surgery could not eliminate the fundamental drives that made her a woman." While this may be the author’s weak attempt to foreshadow that the Agents still have a connection to their lost humanity, I found myself reading this line with utter distaste, so much so that I paused to re-read the line several times.
It’s the wording, really, that ticks me off. What are these ‘fundamental drives’ that make her a woman? Women aren’t defined by innate functions, nor are humans as a whole, for that matter; we aren’t all made up of specific cogs and circuits that define who we are and how we think. So fuck ‘fundamental drives’, and all the ridiculous notions that come with it. If you are going to create a group of characters who have been stripped of their humanity, you should at least have an understanding of what humanity is beyond biology.

Why was I made to read that sex scene in the cave twice? Surely once was enough. Speaking of sex scene in the cave, they really just went and named the baby after where it was conceived didn't they, because that's a thing people do.

Despite the fact that their whole thing on Paleo was about 'Oh lets not destroy this place, it deserves a chance away from humanity, lets just live our lives here', by Ox they had decided (although in an alternate frame/universe) that they would continue on the human race there leading to these quotes:
"...there would be no other woman on Paleo to share the burden of bearing children."
"After this one is born, the next must be yours..."
Also, paired with these quotes by or regarding Tamme "The baby I might bear would not resemble me..." and "It was perhaps the only taste of woman's work she would ever experience." (Granted the last quote also does have her in a protector role but that line was completely unnecessary) These quotes further push the expectation that women are expected to have specific roles.

Whenever a woman was introduced either to the reader or another character, there would inevitably be a description of her breasts.

I get that this was written in the 70's but to me the obvious solution to a love triangle is polyamory, if you all love each other then it makes sense right? So many pages were dedicated to useless deliberation of "Should we get together" from Cal and Veg about Aquilon or "Should I go with veg or Cal" from Aquilon when it all could have been solved (and cut mercifully short) with 'Hey, we're clearly not a group that wants to separate, and two of us pairing off will do irreparable damage to our group structure, so lets all get together.'

I'm sure I will come up with more things I didn't like about how the women were characterized and treated by the author but I think I've made my point.

[Piper Mejia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just really boring ... too much tell - perhaps old fashioned writing that will never be considered a classic.

[James Stockbridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. I liked his other works much better.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book over in Michigan prior to beginning the 1982/83 school year at Loyola University Chicago. It's a trilogy involving three humans and intelligent, flying manta-ray kind of extraterrestrials in cooperative enterprises against threats on different planets and dimensions. A wide variety of creatures are involved, the stories go quickly, but there's nothing I found particularly challenging--just fun.

[Tim]

What a great book! Mind you it was 15 years ago. I've ordered it on the net and its on its way! I will read it again I promise you!