Ox Hardcover – 1976

Even more than the previous books in this series, 0X suffers from a lousy Kindle translation. I hope that Amazon and the publisher can work out corrections soon. The issues range from abundant typos to erratic line breaks and at least one chapter heading that rendered as ordinary text in the middle of a paragraph.And as with previous books in this series, Anthony opens up fascinating concepts that are hobbled by his seeming desire to show readers “new” science — as though what is new to him in 1972 would remain “new” (and relevant) to his trio of explorers in the future. It’s also hobbled by an incredibly weak ending that must have been driven by a deadline. A literal deus ex machina as the final chapter was well in keeping with some of the themes, but it was immensely unsatisfying.

I became reaquainted with this book, the third and final one of a trilogy, after finding the other two in my storage unit and downloading the trilogy on my Kindle. The basis of this book is a continuation of plot ideas hinted at in the first, expanded in the second, and fully realized with all their implications, at least in one alternity :-) The basic plot involves a theory of parallel worlds, and the author does a very good job by deliberately simplifying the variants, and disguising that as yet another plot point. The resolution is extremely satisfying, and as the story moves along it introduces some playful real-life mathematical games that you feel like playing with, long after the story ends. The resolution is at once closed, but also in a way open-ended, as you get the feeling you want to follow what happens with the protagonists afterwards, even though you kind of know. You have to read the first two books in order, "Omnivore", then "Orn", to fully appreciate and know the characters and understand how they react to the situations in the final book. It is well worth the journey!Now a complaint about the kindle version. This version is even worse than the first two, in terms of typographical errors, making it even more obvious that this is the result of extremely poor OCR scanning of an original document. The constant misspelling of "mania" instead of "manta", in nearly 2/3 of the instances was frustrating almost to distraction. I wish someone who had access to the original material could have spent a few minutes to proofread the resulting text and fixed these obvious mistakes. If I knew who published these I'd be more than happy to fix them. These mistakes make it impossible for me to rate the kindle version higher. Please, if anyone knows who is responsible, let me know and I'll work with them.

Love this book

Good read.

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.This is the third and final novel in a three part story of the relationship of Aquilon, Cal, and Veg. 0X (that is, zero-X) follows a similar pattern to Orn in that a new character and concept of intelligence is introduced into the story, but this one is a curious kind of computer. It is fascinating for the mid-1970s, using Martin Gardner's Game of Life as a foundational instigator for artificial intelligence (AI). Unfortunately, reading it today shows the idea to be a bit dated forty years later, but it is still fascinating, and engaged my otherwise cynical view of the possibility for true AI.This is a must read for the hacker community (not to be confused with those who do malicious cracking of computers and the data they hold. If you're confused, visit Eric Raymond's website for an explanation).

Piers Anthony is, if nothing else, a great story teller and this hold true for this work. Reader be warned though, this is the third volume in a typical Anthony Trilogy and to be quite frank, you reall need to read the first two offerings to truely understand this one. The story of OX is a tale of alternate worlds which are crawling with really nasty robot machine. There are three trapped scientists on this world and the story begins with encounters with strange flying beings, half-animal, half-fungus with keen senses, more so than any other creature in our universe. The three protagonists (who we know from the previous books), must find the aperture to return to their own dimension before they get done-in my the not so nice mechanical creatures. This all makes for an interesting tale. Do take note, there are many twists and turns in this book, as with any dealing with altered dimensions, and you must pay close attention to details while reading. I am giving this one five stars, primairly because it is Anthony, but also because I rather enjoyed the book.

I must admit that the explanation of the alternate reality or should I say the inner workings of the alternate realities is somewhat confusing but takes nothing away from the story. Better than the first two books (Omnivore and Orn) which you must read beforehand or be completely lost. Three thumbs up!

An interesting conclusion to the trilogy that asks more questions than gives answers.You must read the previous two to understand....