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Hello and welcome to this month's Member Pick, brought to you by yours truly. The book that narrowly won the poll: Macroscope, written by the very prolific and often controversial Piers Anthony.

The book was published in 1970, coincidentally the year I was born, and was nominated for the Hugo Best Novel.

Sorry for the late posting of this topic! I was out of the country for the first part of the month.

Fourteen people of a total 75 voters voted for this book. So what did you all think of it?

A fanatic astrologer is one who has to ask whether the subject was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Only 9 months after I first created this topic, hope I'm not too late to join the discussion! ;)

Anyway, I finally started this classic a couple weeks ago. I'm a little over 300 pages. May as well report my progress to the ether.

Mindboggling! I am really enjoying it. Although it is essentially a chamber piece featuring 4 major characters (and 2 supporting characters that are quickly disposed of), the sheer scope on display is incredible. For chrissakes, the 4 essentially transform Neptune into a wormhole to allow their macroscope-carrying ship to skip around the galaxy and beyond.

All of the science fictional Piers Anthony interests are here: the nature of the galaxy and the universe, space and time travel, shifting identities, even astrology. This book has made me eager to revisit his Cluster and Tarot series, which feel practically as if they are set in the same universe.

Other hallmarks of the author: a focus on social disparities and broken political systems, gender, and of course sexuality. Masochism as a way to account for wrongdoing. A very lengthy sequence of a body being broken down into protoplasm as a way to travel speedily through space. Some of the chauvinism of both the author and the time period does rear its head, but for the most part, the author does not offend my delicate snowflakey progressive tendencies. Which makes sense because Anthony is very forward-looking in his science fiction. His rendering of the inequities of the world stand as true today as they did back then.

I remember trying to read this as a lad and not getting it. I see why now - it is really heady stuff. Some of it is still flying over my head as I read it.

All that, plus a lengthy sojourn in ancient Phoenicia. That was awesome. I wonder where this will go in the final 100 pages or so.