The Ring [Paperback]

In my opinion, This is the best work Piers Anthony ever did. He has a unique idea for keeping a handle on crime. The Ring does not allow its wearer do anything the wearer knows is wrong. It delivers an electrical shock which intensity is dependent on the severity of the crime. He delves into the way that people who are ringed are treated as well as their reactions. It is a great read.

This novel tells the sort of Geofferry Font Junior, the son of a industrialist who, prior to the setting of the novel, has apparently been framed for extortion by his partner, McKissack. Between the two of them, they had control of one of the largest and most lucrative companies in the near future, G&G Gyromotors (think GM, except gyrotastic). The protagonist has returned from his forced exile on Alpha IV, an inhospitable prison planet where his father was forced to go after his conviction for extortion and his mother was placed after an attempted assault on her husband's business partner.

This is the essential backstory, which was not summarized in fair detail by other reviewers, to my taste. Now, for the plot. Jeff Font wants to clear his father's name and to marry the daughter of McKissack, with whom he shared a childhood romance (of sorts). To this end, he attempts to kidnap her.

As an aside. Several things colored my appreciation of this book. First, it is clearly dated. The characters make mention of hidden repressions, an allusion to Stockholm syndrome (see the botched kidnaping attempt just referred), etc. These episodes are clearly referenced, although quite shallow and poorly developed. Which is unfortunate. Second, along with the undernourishment of the remainder of the novel, securely places it into the realm of common science fiction: Escapism. This is even more tragic because of the novelty and the quality of the material which was tainted.

Back to the plot. After his attempted crime, the protagonist is Ringed. What this means we are left to discover through alternatingly heavy-handed attempts and vague impressions that Big Brother (ooops, I mean the Ultra Conscience) is not only watching, but He is in our heads! While this is not particularly novel, the idea that a normative conscience could be foisted upon a poorly socialized or aberrant individual was quite interesting. The more poorly you behave, the more severe is the punishment, leading to a strongly reinforced motivation to behave yourself.

The philosophical implications of this are addressed, but only in a schoolboy fashion. The one serious incident in the novel has little impact, because a person we have met twice, for about five minutes each time, is the only one who seriously suffers.

The final problem with this book is the ending. Perhaps it was originally twenty or thirty pages later. As is, it stands out as an exemplary deus ex machina, as everything is neatly tied up within twenty pages or so, with only one thread left untied (something about a daughter who is mistaken for someone else at a key moment, for no apparent reason).

Three things would have made this book better. First, the novel should have been four to five hundred pages, not 250. This extra space would have given much greater depth of characters, more space for examining the precariousness of this attempt at resocialization, and a more organic ending. Second, the moral dilemmas faced by Mr. Font would have been more interesting if he had been given more time to work through them to discover what was and was not allowed. We are given to believe that Ultra Conscience is a person, at one point. Who? What are his morals? How are they in comparison with society (obviously they are discrepant, but how much?)? How did this person (or his morality) come to be at the center of jurisprudence? Etc. Third, as mentioned, a more organic, less mysterious, less deus ex machina ending would have been icing on the cake. Even if it were only the icing, the book would have been better.

Not bad. Not great. I probably will read it again fifteen to twenty years from now. Not something I will feel compelled to share.

C

Harkius

I've read around 10-15 books by Piers Anthony, and no offense, but I didn't care for the silly fantasy style of the Xanth series, but this one was a pretty good read. I felt like the protagonist had to succeed, and the risk he faced kept the suspense going.

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