skygiants

I HAVE A NEW FAVORITE RURITANIAN CHILDREN'S BOOK.

The Prince Commands: Being Sundry Adventures of Michael Karl, Sometime Crown Prince & Pretender to the Thrown of Morvania begins when Our Hero, Michael Karl, a youth raised in stifling isolation by a Sinister Guardian, finds out on his eighteenth birthday that he is the secret heir to the throne of Molvania!

NOPE, says Michael Karl, NOTHING DOING, I'M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN AND I HAVE MY RIGHTS AND MY RIGHTS INCLUDE NOT BEING KIDNAPPED TO RULE OVER A RANDOM EUROPEAN COUNTRY, but despite his protests he is immediately bundled off to Molvania. (This is the last we will ever see of the Sinister Guardian.)

While en route to Molvania, Michael Karl learns about the existence of a sinister nobility-hating bandit called THE WEREWOLF. Both he and I simultaneously start rooting for the Werewolf to be the real hero of this novel.

MICHAEL KARL, AS THE TRAIN STOPS AT A PERILOUS MOUNTAIN STATION: Here's the Werewolf's chance to bag one perfectly good Crown Prince.

(Italics, for the record, are all direct quotes.)

...and indeed the Werewolf nabs him, and tears his shirt open to show his royal jewelry (a sparkling diamond cross embedded with a sliver of St. Sebastian's arrows, in case you were wondering whether this book was going to really commit to homosexual undertones), and they exchange some flirty banter while Michael Karl stresses about impressing!

"Enter the villain," announced Michael Karl clearly, still impressed by the melodrama of it all.

"Just so," agreed the masked newcomer, "only I am afraid that we might differ upon the identity of the villain. Now you, of course, have cast me for the role, while I have definitely selected you for the part."

"Of course that is to be expected," answered Michael Karl politely. He wondered desperately just how long they would keep this sort of thing up.

However, Michael Karl decides that he has a duty to get the secret royal jewelry back to the treasury before he peaces back out to America, and so he MAKES HIS ESCAPE and promptly runs straight into ... an extremely dashing American with laughing eyes and a gay smile.

The dashing American ALSO promptly rips Michael Karl's shirt open to see his jewelry, because when you wear a sliver of St. Sebastian's arrows against your chest that's just the kind of thing that happens to you twice a day.

DASHING AMERICAN: I am Frank Ericson, a wealthy eccentric here to write a book about your beautiful country! Why are you wearing royal jewelry?
MICHAEL KARL: I'm ... the prince .... 's ........... totally unimportant friend ..... John????

Michael Karl follows Dashing Frank to the city and volunteers to help out as his secretary while waiting for an opportunity to remove the crown jewels, but by mid-book his priorities have re-oriented, as we go from:

The American attracted him, but he had a queer feeling that Frank Ericson wasn't any more the tall young man's name than John Stephenson was the name that he, Michael Karl, generally answered to

to

Michael Karl flushed as he realized he had been staring at his host

to

All at once Michael Karl knew that he cared more for the American's friendship than anything else in the world

...which doesn't stop him from sneaking down Dashing Frank's SECRET PASSAGE TO THE PALACE when he discovers it, and accidentally overhearing important political plots and schemes that somehow simultaneously involve:

- a plot to sell the country's natural resources to the Americans
- a plot to put the Country's Most Evil Noble on the throne
- a plot for some evil generals to set up a civil war and then loot the treasury while escaping in the chaos
- a plot for a Communist revolution

He runs back and reports everything to Dashing Frank, who now reveals that HE is actually:

- the original Crown Prince, Ulrich Karl, who learned about the plots and faked his own death
- then realized he needed a second secret identity in order to gather secret information
- and promptly turned himself into a Dashing American so he could trot about collecting military secrets and pretend it was research for a travel guide
- his first secret identity is, of course: THE WEREWOLF!!!!

Dashing Ulrich Karl The Princely Werewolf tries to pay Michael Karl's way back to the United States; Michael Karl, Offended And Heartsick, throws his money back in his face.

MICHAEL KARL: Really, you know, I am not used to being paid to get out when I'm not wanted.
DASHING ULRICH KARL THE PRINCELY WEREWOLF: You know you don't believe that. You know that I want you, but not against your will. [...] We haven't much to offer, and the whole thing may end with us blindfolded before a firing squad, but it will be fun while it lasts. I suppose that I shouldn't urge you into it -
MICHAEL KARL: Of course I'm in it. I've been in from the first and loved every minute of it.

And then they have the war, and Michael Karl gets his uniform and a regiment --

DASHING ULRICH KARL THE PRINCELY WEREWOLF: That uniform is very becoming. You should always wear black.

-- and Ulrich Karl drops a few hints about the lonely life of a prince, and Michael Karl drops hints about his deep esteem for Ulrich Karl --

DASHING ULRICH KARL THE PRINCELY WEREWOLF: Then the house [that we shared when you were my fake secretary] on the Pala Horn was home to you?
MICHAEL KARL: Of course.

-- and then there's forty or fifty pages of battles and coronations and so forth that are honestly quite boring and don't make a whole lot of sense, because Andre Norton patently does not really care about the plot, what she REALLY cares about is whether Ulrich Karl and Michael Karl are going to live happily ever after together when both of them are too stubborn to make the first move about asking Michael Karl to stay instead of going back to America!

In the end, Ulrich Karl asks Michael Karl to sign abdication papers before he leaves, and Michael Karl, rejected, is about to sign them and whirl away in a fit of GOODBYE FOREVER, and then! he sees! Ulrich Karl's HAND TREMBLING ON THE PAPER! and realizes that his cousin is never going to make the first move and TEARS THE PAPERS UP!

MICHAEL KARL: You can't ship me out of here without my consent. If you try it I'll -- I'll start a revolution! And then where would you be?
DASHING ULRICH KARL THE PRINCELY WEREWOLF: Right in the front line trench helping you run it, because you're never going to get away from me again, Michael Karl.

("And the way Ulrich Karl said it settled all his cousin's doubts, forever.")

And then they settle down to co-rule the country in domestic bliss, with a dog. Well done, Andre Norton; 10/10 for romance.

(...if, like, a 3/10 for politics; I had one brief moment at the beginning where I got so excited that the book might end with the Werewolf overthrowing the monarchy! ALAS. So it goes in Ruritania.)