Orn

By now I’m sure most Kindle users know how to report content errors, so it’s entirely possible that Amazon will issue updates to make this edition more readable. But it’s still hugely distracting and disappointing to finally have these stories on my Kindle... in such a poor state.And while the story of the humans and mantas is still enjoyable after all this time, many things haven’t aged well. Aquilon is characterized exactly as male sci-fi writers from the ‘60s always characterize women. Cal delivers lectures that would be informative (though outdated) to a modern fifth-grader in a way that seems calculated to introduce audiences of the ‘60s to new concepts like continental drift. Much of the science has been superceded since publication. Gender dynamics are simplified and overplayed. Those little artifacts aren’t story-killers of course. But combined with the bad kindle adaptation, they make for a sometimes clunky read.The fact remains though, that Orn is a wonderful and interesting character concept. The mantas are some of the best and most original aliens in sci-fi. I’m looking forward to re-reading this whole series again when the content errors are corrected!

I've owned the paperback version of this book since 1972, and decided to buy a replacement on Kindle, but reading this version is painful, given the incredible number of spelling and grammar mistakes in this that weren't in the paperback. It almost looks like someone scanned and OCR'd a paper copy but never checked it for correctness. One typo replaced "agent" with "age;", the next page replaced "been" with "be...". Previous pages had missing words as well. I don't know who to contact about it, but I'd be happy to provide proofreading for them.When I first read the story I wasn't aware that it was part of a series. I saw references to the characters' previous adventure on Nacre but had no idea there was a previous novel nor what its name was. I've since corrected that, and have enjoyed the characters and how their stories have affected them. I highly recommend this whole trilogy, and even this middle book, as long as you can ignore the typos and grammar mistakes!

Love this book

I read this back in l966, when I was in college, and for the next 20 years, I read only science fiction. It was that good.

I enjoyed this whole series. In this particular book I liked the characters and the plot was credible for the genre.

A great book (worth 5 stars easily) is totally ruined by the formatting mistakes (or rather, lack of formatting) and the amazing number of misspelled words in it (thus the one star rating). Apparently, it was done by someone who doesn't know how to read or how to format sentences or paragraphs. Extremely disappointing. I hope Piers lays into whoever did this.

I read the Mundania Press edition paperback, which is a well bound paperback of better quality than cheap mass-market paperbacks. There were some spelling and grammatical errors in the text that speak to copyeditors rushing through the text. The publishing industry has been skimping in recent years on editorial and copyediting to save costs, especially in the print-on-demand sector which tends to be lower cost, smaller presses.Orn continues the character driven, hard science-fiction story begun in Omnivore, introducing a dinosaur as a new character, and a couple of curious ideas about dinosaur evolution. The Mundania Press edition includes a new author's note explaining how Anthony thinks these ideas still have merit. If anything, it validates the suspension of disbelief that is needed to complete this excellent continuation of the story of the relationship of Aquilon, Cal, and Veg, which is the foundation of this trilogy.

This is the middle book of the Viscous Circle of Man and Manta set. The first book in the set, Omnivore, introduces both the three main human characters, Cal, Veg, and Aquilon, and a set of rather unique beings, the mantas, who are intelligent, single footed, one-eyed, and members of the fungoid family. Reading the first book of this set prior to this one is not totally required, though it would help with the beginning of this book, which is a direct continuation from the end of Omnivore.Cal, Veg, Aquilon, and four of the mantas are sent on a mission to a newly discovered world (via a transfer mechanism whose operation is not yet completely understood) to determine the world's suitability for human habitation. Cal quickly determines that this world is not 'new', but is rather our Earth of some sixty-five million years ago, the Paleocene age, just after the age of dinosaurs and the beginning of the age of mammals. But within this world there is also something that doesn't quite fit that age: a large, intelligent, flightless bird, Orn.Orn is definitely the best part of this book, as he doesn't think like we do, but rather navigates his world via 'racial memory' - built into his genes are those experiences of all his ancestors that have happened frequently enough to be so imprinted. This is an idea that most biologists think is very unlikely, but it certainly makes for a very different life form whose actions and 'thoughts' are nevertheless very understandable.There is an inevitable meeting between Orn and the humans, occurring in a physically isolated enclave where some of the dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous have managed to survive. The interactions between all of these beings is properly driven by each being's character, from Veg as a confirmed vegetarian to Cal's emphasis on logic and survival of the fittest, and only near the end of the book does it take on larger aspects as the Earth authorities try to exert control over the group.Thematically, this book is a further investigation, which was started in Omnivore, into the morality of killing others to ensure your own survival, here looked at both from the point of view of evolutionary demands and on the individual level, from herbivore to omnivore. At times this book gets a little too bogged down in scientific details (such as the differences between various classes of mollusks), and the portrayed mind-set of the Earth authorities seems a little too harsh to be totally believable, but in general this is a good action-adventure set in environment where dinosaurs are not only believable but are properly portrayed in both their strengths and weaknesses.Anthony closes the book with an appendix that defines his own thoughts on how and why the dinosaurs died out. Written before the confirmation of the iridium layer and the Yucatan crater, his ideas still make a good addendum to the catastrophic theory of their demise, even though he specifically denies 'catastrophe' as the primary cause.This is probably the best of the three books of the triptych, greatly enlivened by the unique viewpoint that Orn brings to it, and is a far more serious effort than his Xanth books. Written very early in his career, it shows the kind of inventiveness and good understanding of human motivation that makes for enlightening reading.--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)