One For The Morning Glory [Mass Market Paperback]

John Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 1997

The Tale began when young Prince Amatus secretly sipped the forbidden Wine of the Gods, leaving him half the lad he'd once been--literally--for his left side suddenly vanished without a trace!

But, as is often the case in Tales of this sort, the young Prince's misfortune was also a sort of blessing in disguise. For a year and a day later, four Mysterious Strangers appeared, and, as Amatus grew to manhood, they guided him on a perilous quest to discover his true identity--not to mention adventure, danger, tragedy, triumph, and true love.

John Barnes has been heralded as "one of the most able and impressive of SF's rising stars" (Publishers Weekly) for his widely praised novels including Orbital Resonance and A Million Open Doors.

Now, in One for the Morning Glory, John Barnes has crafted an artful and immensely entertaining fable that takes its place as a modern fantasy classic beside such enduring works as William Goldman's The Princess Bride and T.H. White's The Once and Future King.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An original SF talent has now turned to humorous fantasy. In the Kingdom of Underhill, the toddler Prince Amatus sips the Wine of the Gods?and his left side vanishes. The King orders the execution of the four royal attendants deemed responsible for the calamity, eventually replacing them with Companions who join Amatus on a series of deadly quests. As the Companions fall one by one, Amatus rises to the stature of a hero-king, regaining his left side and throne along the way. Barnes fills the narrative with the intelligent world-building, well-chosen detail, smooth prose and deft characterization that have marked his other books (including Mother of Storms, nominated for a 1995 Hugo Award). It is also permeated with verbal wit?men are deadly shots with pismires, and the Vulgarians are housed in stupors?but the wordplay palls deeper into the story, as sympathetic characters die by the handful and Underhill comes to resemble Bosnia. While not completely successful either as straight high fantasy or as a satire of the genre, however, the novel still manages to generate a great sense of fun.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Known for his breathtakingly innovative hard sf, Barnes offers a surprising change of pace in his new novel, a delightfully entertaining regal fantasy. In a fit of childish mischief, young prince Amatus drinks the forbidden Wine of the Gods and promptly loses his entire left side. The prince's father, King Boniface, quickly beheads the neglectful royal retinue, then solicits its replacements, which arrive in the form of a captain of the guard, a prince's personal maid, an alchemist, and a royal witch. Charged with Amatus' upbringing, the suspiciously adept foursome guides the now partial prince through his youth in a series of perilous and enlightening adventures designed to reveal his true destiny while concealing a possibly sinister agenda. Along with imaginative variations on the standard fairy tale monsters and magic, Barnes doles out wit, whimsy, and wisdom in equal measures, thereby echoing such other fantasy classics as The Princess Bride and The Once and Future King and establishing himself as a writer of extraordinary versatility. Carl Hays --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy; 1st edition (February 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812551605
• ISBN-13: 978-0812551600
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,249,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My thirtieth commercially published novel will be coming out in spring 2012. I've published about 4 million words that I got paid for. So I'm an abundantly published very obscure writer.

I used to teach in the Communication and Theatre program at Western State College. I got my PhD at Pitt in the early 90s, masters degrees at U of Montana in the mid 80s, bachelors at Washington University in the 70s; worked for Middle South Services in New Orleans in the early 80s. I do paid blogging mostly about the math of marketing analysis at TheCMOSite and All Analytics. If any of that is familiar to you, then yes, I am THAT John Barnes.

There are also many Johns Barneses I am not. I am not the British footballer, the Australian rules footballer, the former Red Sox pitcher, the Tory MP, the expert on ADA programming, the biographer of Eva Peron, the authority on Dante, the mycologist, the travel writer, the guy who does some form of massage healing that I don't really understand at all, the oil executive, the film historian, or that guy that Mom said was my father. I do wish I'd written that book on titmice, though.

I used to think I was the only paid consulting statistical semiotician for business and industry in the world, but I now know four of them. So now I have a large market share of a growing field.

Semiotics is pretty much what Louis Armstrong said about jazz, except jazz paid a lot better for him than semiotics does for me. If you're trying to place me in the semiosphere, I am a Peircean (the sign is three parts, ), a Lotmanian (art, culture, and mind are all populations of those tripartite signs) and a statistician (the mathematical structures and forms that can be found within those populations of signs are the source of meaning). The branch in which I do consulting work is the mathematics and statistics of large populations of signs, which has applications in marketing, poll analysis, and annoying the literary theorists who want to keep semiotics all to themselves.

I have been married three times, and divorced twice, and I believe that's quite enough in both categories. I'm a hobby cook, sometime theatre artist, and still going through the motions after many years in martial arts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Reads Like Watching the "Princess Bride"., June 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: One For The Morning Glory (Mass Market Paperback)

I work in a bookstore and I read quite a bit of science fiction/fantasy. I must admit the art by Charles Vess drew me to this book, so I picked it up and read the back. The idea of a young prince, missing one side of his body, going on adventures with fiendly but mysterious companions intrigued me. About three months after buying it, I finally got around to reading it (as I stated, I work in a bookstore, hence I buy and read many books). After the first page and a half I was hooked. Mr. Barnes writing style was very fluid and much like a classic fairy tale. The reference to the Spinx's riddle and to J.R.R.Tolkien's "The Hobbit" was also very enjoyable. This would have to be the best stand-alone fantasy I have read in at least two years! When I tried to think of a way to describe this book to my friends, the phrase that came to mind was that it reads like watching the "Princess Bride". In closing I'd like to add that three of my friends now own a copy and at least 3 customers I have shown the book to were very pleased with it and have picked up other novels by John Barnes. Thank you for your time

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars read between the lines, October 23, 1999

By 

Christopher (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One For The Morning Glory (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book and loved it. Like the best John Barnes books I've read (e.g. Earth Made of Glass), the author resists the temptation to just give us what we want, which would result in a much shallower book. With Barnes' superb writing and ability to draw the reader in, a shallower book would probably be very entertaining and possibly more popular. I'm glad he went for a meatier treatment, though. I believe that One for the Morning Glory isn't so much about Amatus and the fantastic world he lives in as it is about fantasy and reality and how fairy tales were originally written to instruct rather than to entertain, and possibly about many other themes which I haven't grasped yet. My wife recently read the book, and we had the most amazing conversations afterwards. This is a book to make you think. If you're looking for simple entertainment, read Patton's Spaceship. If you want to be entertained and also inspired to think about the world in new ways, read One for the Morning Glory.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A postmodern fairy tale, November 23, 1999

By 

Michael Kozlowski (Livonia, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One For The Morning Glory (Mass Market Paperback)

Barnes, better known for his science fiction, here turns his hand to fantasy, in a Princess Bride-like self-aware fairy tale. The book genuinely captures the magical, inexplicable atmosphere of a real fairy tale while simultaneously playing with the genre. Part of this inexplicability is the consequent of a plot whose depths eluded my understanding, admittedly; but even the sense that there was something I wasn't grasping added to the feel of the story. The charming atmosphere is likewise enhanced by Barnes' quirky wordplay -- where else will you see a soldier carrying an escree? -- which serves to delight rather than confuse.