L'Aire Nodale : un lieu terrifiant où la matière née de la Profondeur s'ouvre à la vie dans d'atroces convulsions ; le centre géométrique des Douze Galaxies qui forment l'univers, le commencement et la fin du temps et de l'espace... C'est là que la planète Terreur doit subir l'annihilation, pour expier les crimes atroces de sa population maudite. Et c'est là que James Andrek a rendez-vous avec son destin. Chassé de l'anneau galactique par Obéron, l'orgueilleux souverain des mondes habités, Andrek va se retrouver au coeur du plus diabolique des complots, pion impuissant d'une lutte opposant les religions d'Aléa et de Ritornel. Entre la doctrine du hasard capricieux et celle de l'éternel retour, ce n'est pas seulement le sort de la planète Terreur qui est en jeu, mais aussi celui des Douze Galaxies... Chef-d'oeuvre d'imagination, L'anneau de Ritornel a élevé le space opera au rang d'Art Majeur : un univers de terreur et de beauté à ranger aux côtés des meilleurs textes de Cordwainer Smith et d'Alfred Bester.
Author
Also credited as Charles Harness. Charles Leonard Harness was born December 29, 1915 in Colorado City TX. After an abortive stint at Texas Christian University, studying to be a preacher, he moved on to George Washington University in Washington DC, where he received a B.S. degree in 1942, and a law degree in 1946. He married in 1938, and he and wife Nell have a daughter and a son. He worked as a mineral economist for the US Bureau of Mines, 1941-47, then became a patent attorney, first with American Cyanamid (1947-1953), then with W.R. Grace & Co. (1953-1981). His first story, ‘‘Time Trap’’, appeared in Astounding (8/48), and he went on to write a number of well-regarded SF stories, many involving future trials and patent attorneys. A series of patent office spoofs/stories (some co-written with Theodore L. Thomas) appeared under the pseudonym Leonard Lockhard, beginning with ‘‘Improbable Profession’’ (Astounding 9/52). His first published novel, Flight Into Yesterday (aka The Paradox Men), first appeared as a 1949 novella, and was expanded in 1953. The Rose, his most famous novella, appeared as a book in 1966. It was followed by Wagnerian space opera The Ring of Ritornel (1968), Wolfhead (1978), The Catalyst (1980), Firebird (1981), The Venetian Court (1982), Redworld (1986), Krono (1988), Lurid Dreams (1990), and Lunar Justice (1991). His short fiction has been collected in An Ornament to His Profession (1998), which includes not only ‘‘The Rose’’ but a new novella as well.
