Omnivore

Of Man and Manta #1

by Piers Anthony

Three scientists came to the mysterious planet Nacre to discover, to explore, to record. Utterly defenseless, they trekked through the grotesque jungle of multiform mushrooms and dense spore-clouds, hoping to unlock the secret of this strange world. The stunning climax of their mission was just the beginning of a complex drama in which their survival--and return to earth-could spell the extinction of humanity.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Ebooks, Collections

221 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

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

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnivore was Anthony's second or third published novel and is the first book of a trilogy (Man and Manta) with titles of diminishing length that start with the letter O, the next two being Orn and Ox. I believe Anthony started out as a very good serious science fiction writer who chose to write humorous fantasy very prolifically instead. He sets up a very complex and fascinating alien ecosystem based on sentient fungus. He sends a trio of socially inept and sexually fixated people to explore it, which was much more socially acceptable in 1968 than it is now. It's an interesting story in a really excellent setting, and the writing is much more polished than his later work. The Ballantine first edition has a really striking cover by Jerome Gask, who only painted a handful of genre covers during his brief foray into the field, but all of them were memorable.

[Glen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better Than 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.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a fair amount of PA in the 80s and there were things I loved about his work and things that made me cringe. Reading Omnivore brought my love/hate memories into sharp focus. Published in 1968, Omnivore takes place in a not so distant future, but one with space travel and human colonization of distant planets. While a little disjointed at first, the story soon sorts itself out. A special agent, Subble, has an assignment to investigate the three survivors of an expedition on the planet Nacre, who are now back on Earth. Subble visits all three in turn, and from each one gets a part of the story of what happened on Nacre.

PA performs some fascinating world building here; Nacre is a planet populated primarily by the 'third kingdom' of life, namely fungus. Yet, the life on Nacre is not your typical slime molds! Nacre has lots of mushrooms and such, but it also evolved analogies to living creatures, such as herbivores who munch on various forms of fungus, omnivores who prey on herbivores and local 'plant' life, and finally, carnivores who prey on the omnivores (get the title yet?). The three person team of Veg (his nickname as he is a vegetarian), Aquilon, a beauty (of course) and Cal, a brilliant but partially disabled man. The three are on a mapping/exploring expedition on Nacre, cruising around with a high-tech tractor when they encounter a 'manta'-- one of the apex predators of the planet. The mantas are fascinating aliens and PA is exceptional here regarding them. After trying to outrun a manta, the tractor breaks down and the small group is stranded miles from home base. The stories they tell the agent fill in the blanks regarding what happened next. Subble himself is a great character; the agents have their memories 'wiped' after each mission, just leaving their training behind. All agents are almost supermen, with a variety of enhancements and skills.

Now for why PA can make me cringe, which is here in spades. While I realize social norms differed regarding women back 'in the day', and often older science fiction (and other genres) are quite sexist, PA manages to be both sexist and pervy at the same time. This, for lack of a better word, is his 'skeezy' aspect, and in Omnivore, the skeeze centers on Aquilon. She is the center of a strange 'love triangle' with Veg and Cal; it seems she really needs a man to feel complete, but cannot choose between the two men for fear of hurting the one left out. Her curves and body are described in detail almost every time we encounter her, and she literally throws herself on the agent when they first meet; her 'vamp' routine. She is an artist (painter) and her role on the expedition was to paint the local fungus-life. She could have been a strong female lead, but instead is a needy sexual object. There really is no rationale for his skeeze here; it does nothing for the plot or story in general.

So, on the one hand we have some exceptional world building and great aliens, along with some mystery regarding the future of Earth as a result of encountering Nacre; really classic science fiction tropes done very well here! On the other hand, we have PA with all his skeeze regarding female characters. PA is quite erudite, and Omnivore fairly drips with references/quotes of Shakespeare, classic English poets and so forth. His prose is lively and often funny, and the action scenes are intense. The overall story is amazing, including his explication of the Third Kingdom. Yet, all of this is really dragged down by his skeeze. This could have been a 4 or even 5 star read, but as it stands, the best I can give it is a 3.

[Graham P · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the equivalent of reading a Hanna-Barbera Saturday Morning Show novelization (just imagine Sigmund the Sea Monster teaching an intro to Biology), complete with 3 stages of sentient fungi from another planet - alongside 3 curious scientists who have to be the most hare-brained idiots to ever grace the pages of an SF novel. While OMNIVORE gets a whopping 1 star rating, I enjoyed this 1968 novel as if I were taking part in some fever dream layered with juvenile science and mind-boggling smut. The novel angered me, made me laugh out of pity and wonder, filled my knotty head with images of flying fungoid manta rays who may want to enlighten our heroes -- or eat their faces off -- and enough hare-brained theories on lifeforms and evolution that induce head-trauma no amount of weed can help pacify as pleasure. If earth peoples are this dumb, then we may as well abort the mission and deep-six the world.

The cast is truly a gem in 'the shitty'. Big stud, Veg, is not only a vegetarian but a whopping mass of muscle and brawn with little brain. He's a leader with nothing really to lead. He can't even drive the tractor-truck without crashing off the fungoid road. And he's got a hard-on for fellow scientist, Aquilon, who is a master scientist (at fucking what?) and a painter who seems to whip up masterpieces of fungi life within mere seconds. Oh boy, she really is a genius with that canvas and brush! And if it weren't for her inability to smile, she might as well be the ultimate woman. Yes, she's hotter than a Russ Meyer vixen but is cursed with an ugly smile, one so ugly that her family beat her every time she showed her teeth. But little sympathy here, she's dumb as a stump, too. I thought at any moment, she'd bare all her cartoonish curves and fornicate with a mushroom for the sake of science, but sadly, Piers Anthony didn't bring us there.

And then there is the other scientist, Cal, who is the most annoying fuck imaginable. Not only does he over-indulge his biological genesis theories, he is a coward and a fink you want to leave on a cliff with no food or water. And the thing about Cal is that he needs to drink blood to survive. Does his vampirism ever really come up again...no, not really, but he's also got the hots for Aquilon too. And if there's anything an interstellar epic needs is a tepid love triangle. Toss in a detective cyborg, Subble, who manages to bed the much-lusted Aquilon, but tries to get the bottom of why these 3 scientists brought back the manta babies to Earth. BTW, Subble is a master of kung-fu and psychoanalysis. Also, he's a pompous dickhead to boot.

And I won't even get started on the magical trip scenes complete with a little mushroom genie who talks as if he's from Brooklyn, and rides an exercise bike to boot. Or the lumberjack brawl that takes over the first 20 pages.

OMNIVORE? So bad it's good? I'm still not sure. But for the curse of complete-ism, I have the sequels ORN and OX to look forward to when I crave a headache. I will always have the Mantas. Long live the planet Nacre. Long live the mantas.

[Layne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnivore is a better science fiction novel than I expected. I first tried to read it many years ago as a teenager but I never got past about page 25. It is a bit slow to start out, and it may have frustrated me back then that the plot is stitched together through a series of flashbacks and episodic scenes. It also reads like a mystery novel without everything fitting together until the very end. However, with more patience and a greater appreciation for more complicated fiction now, I enjoyed both the story and the ideas that went with it.

To briefly introduce the plot without giving anything away: Explorers from Earth are on the planet Nacre, where they are confronted by the alien life and strange ecosystem there. An investigator named Subble, given superhuman powers and a mission from an unnamed government director, must discover what the explorers have learned and what it means for the future of Earth.

The biggest limitation of this novel is that it tries only fitfully to present understandable characters. The only female character is mostly just a sex symbol, and the three main male characters are under-developed as well. The only things we really know about the human characters are the bare minimum required by the plot. However, Piers Anthony has imagined some truly original and intriguing aliens, and I like that he even develops the characters and motives of the aliens to some extent. Also, the plot is a strength. It moves along at a good speed and contains exciting action sequences that are fun to read.

More than just being a good adventure story, Omnivore presents ideas that provoked me to think more deeply about the ecology of Earth and mankind's effects on our planet. That is why I rated this book as 4 stars out of 5. Though it was written long ago in 1968, the author's ideas look increasingly prescient and are even more relevant today than they were then. As one of the characters, Cal, proclaims, "Man is an omnivore, figuratively as well as literally. He consumes everything" (p. 114).

[Julie Capell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1968, when Omnivore was first published, Piers Anthony was a celebrated science fiction writer. His 1967 novel, Chthon, was nominated for the Hugo for Best Novel, as was his 1969 novel, Macroscope. Neither won (Chthon lost to Zelazny’s Lord of Light and Macroscope lost to LeGuin’s masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness- which also beat out Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5. Novels from 1968 that were nominated for the Hugo included Delany’s Nova, Lafferty’s Past Master, and the winner, Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar). Amidst this plethora of riches, Omnivore stands out for two reasons: the novel’s unique construction and its biological theme.

Anthony grabs the reader’s attention from the first page, introducing as the novel’s protagonist a detective who has had his memory wiped clean. In this way, society ensures that the investigator cannot bring any preconceptions to the investigation. For the reader, this mechanism allows one to learn along with the protagonist the nature of the alleged crime being investigated, the personalities of the parties to the crime, and the ultimate resolution of the case. This unique twist saves the novel from being a predictable detective story. It takes a while for the nature of the crime to be revealed, but along the way Anthony builds a fascinating alien biology based on fungus and gently educates the reader on the importance of fungi to the entire ecology of the Earth. It is this biological element that I found the most fascinating part of the book. Not enough of science fiction focuses on the biological sciences, despite the fact that the Earth is much more likely to face biological catastrophe than an asteroid collision.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to think this was written 40 years ago. Many of the issues foretold are happening right now. I am not sure I "got" many of the references back when I read it in High School, however I do remember really like the book.

Now on to the next two...

Actually, after reading this and Macroscope, I am sorry to know that the "Xanth" series soured me for this author. I may have to go back and dig up any non-xanth stuff as he is really quite good when not spewing the pulpy stuff.

IMHO of course

[Gwen Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this very long ago... probably sometime in the 70's or possibly 80's. It had this cover: (see http://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/8...), and I have to admit, I read it because there was a picture of a woman in a bra on the cover. Locating the portion of the book where she took off her shirt was anticlimactic, but the premise of the book always interested thereafter, and I hope to read it again sometime.

[Syl Sabastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This stood out for me because of the sophistication of the story and the characters especially. there was a depth to the insights, while seemingly speculative, were in fact based on real possibility, potentiality, and experience. As a grand extrapolation, expertly done, it was outstanding, as well as containing all of the usual excellent elements of entertaining and riveting story-telling. But this book had that elusive More that made it a stand-out for me.

[Abigail Ceremuga · Rating 4 out of 5]

The overall plot and characters kept me engaged and interested... Some of the technical scenes lost me and went straight over my head. What a weird little book.

[Joey Brockert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the strangest and best stories I have read. It combines a bit of science fiction, ecology and social dynamics. The heroes travel to another planet, Nacre, that is full of fungus, you know, mushrooms and molds. Now they are back on Earth. Subble is inquiring about something that happened on Nacre with Veg, Aquilon and Calvin.
Subble is a trained agent, but to us and them he is a superman.
Veg is a vegetarian who logs for a living.
Aquilon is an .
Calvin is pure carnivore, there is an explanation in the book, but I forget what it was. He is also the scientist who understands a lot of what happens to them.
They are in love with each other, but do not want to take advantage of their situation in any way. Veg will not have sex with Aquilon because Cal loves her as well. Cal feels the same way about sex with Aquilon. Aquilon does not want to turn this into anything else because the status quo is okay and she can not decide who she loves more.
The planet has these fungi that have evolved into various niches of the ecology because there are not plants or animals. The story revolves around how these three interacted with each other and the fungi, and vice a versa. It is very interesting what the author says of fungus here on Earth.

[Tami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnivore is a re-release of the book of the same name first published in the late 1960's. It is the first book of a trilogy, Orn and OX being the second and third book of this series. Omnivore is the story uncovered by a futuristic superhuman government investigator named Subble while investigating the disappearance and murder of eighteen space explorers on the exotic planet of Nacre. As the investigator's mind is wiped completely clean after each mission to eliminate any bias, Subble must uncover the clues to this mystery through interviews with three suspects (Veg, Aquilon, and Cal) as well as a few more unconventional tactics.

Through quite short, Omnivore is a thorough and intelligent science fiction story. The parallels between the inhabitants of the planet of Nacre, the three suspects, and humankind in general is extremely intriguing and timeless. The concepts behind the workings of the planet of Nacre itself are very creative and clever. The characters are creatively realistic with a touch of 1960's nostalgic spirit. This unique mixture creates a story that is both entertaining and thought provoking.

[Jonathan Palfrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

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, 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.

[Adrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pra mim é curioso ler um leigo falando sobre evolução biológica, usando conceitos q ele certamente aprendeu em livros de divulgação q provavelmente não eram super novos quando ele leu. Então temos uma história de evolução alternativa contada em 1968, num planeta onde o "3º reino" predomina. Os personagens são vazios, a ação inexiste. Um monte de saltos de flashback embolando bastante a história. Hoje em dia seria muito clichê, contato entre espécies muito diferentes, seguida de uma destruição brutal de alienígenas contaminantes na Terra. O conceito das mantas como super-fungos sapientes é bem interessante. Piers Anthony certamente tem mais a oferecer do q as bobagens de Xanth.

[Simon Finnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most people here, I read this as a child in the 80s as it was on my parents' shelves and the cover drew me in (the flying mushroom one not the scantily clad one!). I recently found it in a secondhand bookshop and was interested to see how it had matured.

In short, brilliantly. Yes, it's pace is a little slow at times and the dialogue slightly academic, but it's well worth the perseverence. It's cleverly structured, contains some remarkable twists and overall stays with you long after finishing.

I'm not a massive science fiction fan, but I would seek out Anthony's other books including the rest of this trilogy on the back of this....

[Lia Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving this a rating was difficult. I found the beginning to be rather slow and a bit disjointed, however, it does open up into quite a good story in the latter half. Unfortunately, the only female character was primarily portrayed as an overly emotional object of desire for the majority of the book and the overt sexism throughout was, quite frankly, hard to read.

I was glad to have stuck with it to see the story improve towards the end as it did have some interesting and imaginative descriptions of multiform mushrooms on the mystical planet Nacre, but I won’t be rushing to read the other two books in the trilogy. 3/5.

[Nibrock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Second time reading this book. Was a lot different from what I remembered. Was a little hard to follow as the story is told from 4 or 5 different view points and big gaps between the narrative. I learned more about fungus and mushrooms from this book that I ever thought that I would need to know.

Because it is an "old" book (pub. 1968) the "futuristic" science is funny. Still thinking in terms of tube televisions, cameras with film needing developing chemicals, no distance communication, other than radio, but space flight and reaching/colonizing other planets is easily achieved.

[Bri Fidelity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I re-read this a couple of years ago and it's actually still Quite Good.

Not Good Good, mind you - just Quite Good. But it is Piers Anthony, and as such it was rather a relief to get to the finish and not want to scrub myself clean in a bathtub filled with Listerine. (I should've left it there, but then, optimistically, I started on the sequel, too.)

[Andrew Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever question who we are, and how we do things? A small team comes to a planet where the rules apply in a much different manner. The third kingdom, (fungi) is alive and well on another planet where the rules of life are much more defined. Join the group as they realize a lot about themselves and their world as they explore this strange new planet.

[Leanna Aker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love sci fi that has ecology as a main theme. This was my first Piers Anthony book, and I will definitely read more. This wasn't too dense, and the story was interesting and perfectly nerdy for me.

[Cristy Weldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting play on what constitutes sapiens.

[Kayte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting combination of story, world building, and science. Looking forward to the 2nd and 3rd books.

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grade B. Book O1.

[Ellis Knox · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read. Gotta watch out for them mushrooms! Classic science fiction that takes a concept and sees it through to its logical conclusion.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it a long time ago and I don't remember much, but that cover still haunts me so I'm going to say it made a pretty strong impression!

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back when Piers Anthony was at the beginning of his career he wrote this stunning trilogy and Macroscope. Whatever you may think of his later works, these four novels are good SF.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young adult 10-15

[Stuart Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The planet Nacre is the home of three sentient space mushroom species. One is a herbivore, one an onnivore, and one a carnivore. They are visited by three Earth spacemen. One is a vegetarian, one is a normal person, and one has a severe iron deficiency. They get stranded far from their base and have a long adventure trying to get back and have many interactions with the mushroom people along the way.

When they come back to Earth they are under investigation by the government. The Government agent is a super man with a Vulcan-like focus. He needs to use his physical and intellectual skills to get answers from the three spacemen because they are all severely damaged psychologically and won't just answer perfectly logical questions. The final spaceman leads him on some Timothy Leary psycho-babble and a final showdown with the Shroom of Doom.

This is vintage 1960s scientifiction, with super powered humans, weird aliens, and drug induced hippie psychology. There is a great deal of spurious rambling to explain a perfectly obvious scientific process that is the real danger. Not really necessary because you won't know what's coming unless you are a mushroom doctor. Then you'd be afraid. Very afraid. Of mushrooms. With eyes.

[D. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I put the book down after the fist few pages. The protagonists is a government law enforcement officer who comes to coerce information from people who just would rather be left to themselves. The government agent freely speaks of his willingness to lie, cheat, blackmail, use people and use whatever force he sees as necessary to obtain the information he seeks - all in strict confidence he assures. That was more than enough for me to be out. Had the book been written a few decades later I’m sure the protagonists would have had a few choice words to say about global warming and white male privilege too.
As i almost always like the author’s work perhaps i should have stuck with it. I trust the author and the book could only get better from here. Maybe I’ll pick it back up sometime and start reading on chapter two.

[Catsalive · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hard work but also very interesting. Quite amazing world-building but quite slow to begin with. Essentially a story in 4 parts told by 3 humans who were trapped in an alien eco-system populated by various forms of fungi - some animate & cognitively advanced -: the 4th part is told from the investigator's point of view with some input from the intelligent fungus, the Mantas.

My enjoyment is definitely affected by my 2022 eyes reading 1968 SF, but I did find it all quite fascinating. I'm not sure if I'm up to the effort of completing the trilogy, however.

Vachel 'Veg' Smith, Aquilon 'Quilon', Cal, Subble