Macroscope review
Posted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 4:23 pm
Just finished Macroscope (1969) by Piers Anthony. It's been over 25 years since my first and second readings.
Subjectively, I found that Macroscope, from the perspective of 25 years or more, was like a palimpsest in which the old faded and forgotten words were merely refreshed, not replaced with new ones.
The ending leaves the reader hanging, and I have seen some dissatisfied reviews of the book because of this. Yet the ending hinted at is not important for resolving the book's main conflicts, perhaps it was left for a Macroscope sequel which will never be written.
Some readers may think that the book degenerated from pleasing hard-core science fiction to peurile fantasy, but in fact the conflict is resolved as a synthesis of the two genres by means of the alien S Prime device, just as other conflicts in the book are resolved through synthesis and transcendence, the fictional end-result being literal god-hood. And, on a smaller level, the "good guy" somehow manages to get the girl, even though he is now completely a man and she a woman ("maturity" a major theme of the novel, and the dangers of striving to achieve maturity on one level before one is ready for it on a more basic level - you'll get your fingers burned, and the female can be as much a Destroyer as the male counterpart of the species).
As with many books and short stories Anthony wrote in the late 1960s early '70s, Macroscope is not for the average reader. That is no doubt why they did not sell well at the time - they did not, according to Anthony, sell well at all until he had achieved his fame through less mature yet more popular writings. And then fans such as myself went in search of these earlier gems which were written and published while I was still reading childrens' stories, gems such as Hasan and various mostly bizarresque short stories (penned by a struggling young author) which I gleefully devoured in the late '70s through early '80s.
Anthony's mind, as it comes through his writing, still appeals to me, even dazzles me in a good way, after all these years, and I devoured this book as I had decades before, while other, previously unread books on my plate were left for afterward. I certainly don't mind re-runs as long as they are of Macroscope's superlative quality.
I recommend Macrosope to any and all who are interested in both Sci-fi and Fantasy, and who don't mind that synthesis and transcendence sometimes, if not always, are opposed to the readers' wishes; and that these wishes must sometimes be sacrificed to the greater need of the literature at hand.
Subjectively, I found that Macroscope, from the perspective of 25 years or more, was like a palimpsest in which the old faded and forgotten words were merely refreshed, not replaced with new ones.
The ending leaves the reader hanging, and I have seen some dissatisfied reviews of the book because of this. Yet the ending hinted at is not important for resolving the book's main conflicts, perhaps it was left for a Macroscope sequel which will never be written.
Some readers may think that the book degenerated from pleasing hard-core science fiction to peurile fantasy, but in fact the conflict is resolved as a synthesis of the two genres by means of the alien S Prime device, just as other conflicts in the book are resolved through synthesis and transcendence, the fictional end-result being literal god-hood. And, on a smaller level, the "good guy" somehow manages to get the girl, even though he is now completely a man and she a woman ("maturity" a major theme of the novel, and the dangers of striving to achieve maturity on one level before one is ready for it on a more basic level - you'll get your fingers burned, and the female can be as much a Destroyer as the male counterpart of the species).
As with many books and short stories Anthony wrote in the late 1960s early '70s, Macroscope is not for the average reader. That is no doubt why they did not sell well at the time - they did not, according to Anthony, sell well at all until he had achieved his fame through less mature yet more popular writings. And then fans such as myself went in search of these earlier gems which were written and published while I was still reading childrens' stories, gems such as Hasan and various mostly bizarresque short stories (penned by a struggling young author) which I gleefully devoured in the late '70s through early '80s.
Anthony's mind, as it comes through his writing, still appeals to me, even dazzles me in a good way, after all these years, and I devoured this book as I had decades before, while other, previously unread books on my plate were left for afterward. I certainly don't mind re-runs as long as they are of Macroscope's superlative quality.
I recommend Macrosope to any and all who are interested in both Sci-fi and Fantasy, and who don't mind that synthesis and transcendence sometimes, if not always, are opposed to the readers' wishes; and that these wishes must sometimes be sacrificed to the greater need of the literature at hand.