This is my second book by Harness. He writes interesting but unusual SF. He has won some awards for his shorter works. This is a big space opera with Harness special twist. He almost pulls it off. Almost. ( )

It’s been a while since I read this; I have the 1974 Panther edition lurking in the library along with other editions Harness’ works of that vintage.

Described as a Wagnerian space opera, The Ring of Ritornel follows on from The Paradox Men, and deals with the culmination of James Andrek’s 18-year search about his father’s death and his elder brother’s disappearance. The Twelve Galaxies have been long settled by humanity’s descendants and various alien species. Terra, the homeworld of humanity, is now Terror and is on the verge of being finally destroyed as punishment for starting a nuclear war to prevent it’s colonies breaking from it’s control (no matter that the crime and punishment thereof were only put in place after Terra had lost the war). Oberon, the tyrant of the Spiral Galaxy, has a daughter, Amater, who is loved by James Andrek - who has been trained as a lawyer and works in Oberon’s service. Also involved are two religions - Alea, the Goddess of Chance, and Ritornel, the ring of Creation.

Effectively, the story deals with the inevitability of history - that things repeat, whether it’s civilisations or creations. This thread is very marked in the other two books in the sequence. Unlike most space opera, it’s not mighty men and mighty machines vs vicious BEMs, it’s more intelligent and sweeping in scope.

Recommended.

My reactions to reading this novel in 1991. Spoilers follow.

This is the quintessential Harness novel though I liked The Paradox Men better for a stronger element of revenge. All his characteristic themes are here: the lovers (Jamie Andrek and Amatar) fighting against a despot (here Amatar’s father, Oberon, determined to kill Andrek to destroy a potential threat to his life -- Oberon killed Andrek’s father and imprisoned Andrek’s brother Omere’s consciousness in a computer), the mysterious workings of fate (a theme not only echoed here in the preachings of the Ritornel and Alea religions but the crystomorphs of the Aleans which attempt to project the future of a man’s life and how it will be influenced by other events and other people), cycles of time (here the Ritornel belief in an eternal, predestined cycle), the law (Andrek is a lawyer and we are treated to a scene where he saves Earth from destruction), and even spiders (Harness gives us a clever sf idea here -- along with the usual van Vogtian fairy-tale vistas of time and spaces -- a metal poor planet formed from the debri of a first generation star populated by sentient aliens, expert surgeons descended from spiders). There is also art here in the form of Omere (based on Harness' brother who died at an early age). There is also an Adam and Eve plot here. Like Harness’ “The New Reality”, it involves a couple repopulating a cleansed Earth in another universe.

The novel is clever on many counts: the corrupted names of Earth (Terror) (However, it was rather obvious that Terror was Earth as it was that Kendrys and Amatar were clones of Oberon) and Rimor (for Rhymer, the computer/brain synthesis of poet Omere); the novel is filled with manifestations of the struggle between the two philosophies of Alea (total randomness) and Ritornel (total predestination bolstered by some interesting philosophical arguments. There is the bet between monk Vang of the Aleans and Andrek as to whether twelve die rolls would produce the Ring of Ritornel, the spiders web which produces adodecahedron -- symbol of Alea’s die. Imagery of randomness is repeated with the many die casts throughout the plot, the very chapter structure which goes from 1-12 and then goes from 12-1 where each of the last 11 chapters is a slightly modified restatement of the title of the first 11 chapters -- thereby invoking the twelve faces of Aleas die and the cyclical ring of Ritornel. There is a clever, but nonscientifi,c description of antimatter. Love is another theme in the union of Andrek’s and Omere’s mind (and the symmetry of both experiencing disembodied states).

Everything is very well woven together in this novel, but the central theme is the questions as to what guides fate: the randomness of Alea or pre-destination of Ritornel. Both play their part. A marvellously integrated, exciting book, a true masterpiece. ( )

Le héros est un jeune homme dont le père - officier dévoué - est assassiné sur le caprice d'un tyran, Obéron, et le frère - poète exceptionnel - enfermé dans un ordinateur pour distraire le même tyran. Le gamin ignore tout de cela, il devient juriste et entre au service du tyran et tombe amoureux de sa fille avec réciprocité. Comment faire un Space-op avec 5 personnages, du grand art...! Les ennemis de notre héros (dont le tyran, vous l'aviez deviné) veulent le faire disparaîre mais il bénéficie du soutient d'un mystérieux moine qui veut faire de lui et de sa bien-aimée les fondateurs d'une nouvelle race et les futurs habitants d'un nouveau cosmos, excusez-les du peu. Ça finira pas du tout comme ça .. ( )

A "wide screen baroque" space opera to use Brian Aldiss' often cited term. An orphaned young man grows up under the rule of a hegemonic monarchical empire while trying to find out what happened to his poet laureate brother who has mysteriously disappeared. His search leads him into a struggle for the universe. Clones, romance,space spiders,planets sentenced to doom being dragged to a void part of space to be exploded, conflicting religions governed respectively by chance or predestination -all kinds of neat stuff.
Fun book albeit it's dated approach -at a certain point Vogtian tricks and rubber science pop out and fuel the story a little too much with hokey plot devices.
Still, richly textured in spite of it's length, and a number of wild ideas.
I do now see where that Harness is definitely a big influence on Bayley, especially with regard to a fascination with Nietzsche's idea of eternal return. ( )