Customer Reviews

The Prince Commands (A Tor Book)

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Michael Karl's dreams for the future do *not* include becoming the monarch of an obscure Ruritanian kingdom but he soon discovers he has no say in the matter. He, the result of a misalliance between a Morvanian Prince and an American girl, is now the sole heir to the throne.
However not all of his future subjects are welcoming. On his way to his capital Michael Karl is captured and threatened by a rebel leader known as the Werewolf, apparently because he is one! Escaping Michael lands on the doorstep of an American Journalist in the guise of a distressed fellow citizen resolutely concealing his royal identity.
All Michael wants is to go home to America but even incognito he can't help but get caught up in the political turmoil of his ancestral land and begins to wonder if maybe the Werewolf doesn't have a point after all.

The Prince Commands (1934)

This is Andre Norton's first book. The late grand mistress of science fiction and fantasy wrote an Author's Note in this book of:



Author's Note:

"Once, some few years ago, a boy begged a story of me. It was to be of "sword fights and impossible things" I complied as best I could with this imaginary tale of Courts and Castles, Crown Princes and Communists. The telling of it was not of days or weeks, but in months.

Here, John, is your story of "impossible thing."

Back to the review:


I don't know who John was ,but the whole community of Science Fiction and Fantasy readers owes John a great deal.

Andre Norton wrote her first book as far as I know in 1934 and her last one, by herself, in 2005. She died March 17, 2005 and her publisher rushed a copy of Three Hands from Scorpio, her last, to her death bed for her to see.

Andre Norton wrote more an a hundred novels. She was noted for having found success through writing young adult and children's stories. She was the first woman to have been awarded Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and the Nebula Grand Master Awards.


Let's see that's 71 years of writing. Pretty good for a librarian from Cleveland, Ohio.



"Raised in America, Michael Karl learns at eighteen that he is heir to the throne of Morvania, a Balkan kingdom threatened by revolution and by the sinister Werewolf, a mountain marauder of more than human reputation whose followers may be less than human."

"The moment he arrives in Morvania, Michael Karl is plunged into a seething plot and counterplot, and deadly danger. His death would greatly benefit some very powerful adversaries.

Michael embarks on a desperate, thrilling scheme. If it succeeds, the future of Morvania will be changed for the good.

If he fails Michael will die..."

On a personal note, Andre Norton's was the very first Science Fiction that I ever read, sometime in the 1950's, I believe. My Brother had purchased the paperback version of Andre Norton's Starman's Son and let me read it. I was hooked. Have been ever since.


Highly recommended for fans of Andre Norton with a WARNING. Even though Andre Norton is best known for her Science Fiction and later fantasy, this is neither. It is simply a superb action adventure. My ex-library copy had it mislabeled as science fiction.

I don't believe any Andre Norton library would be complete without this book

Gunner April, 2008

Long out of print, this is the very first novel ever published by the wildly prolific Andre Norton, who in her long life (she died in 2005) wrote over 170 novels (alone and with co-authors), edited or co-edited a dozen anthologies, and turned out an unknown number of short fictions. At this point in her career Norton hadn't yet found her distinctive voice or her true calling (as an sf/fantasy writer); what she has here is a Ruritanian romance, only without the romance (in the contemporary sense of "love story"), updated for the interwar era. Young Michael Karl, though an American, has lived a sequestered life in a remote manor house, from which he is abruptly shipped off to Morvania, a middle-European nation of which he's supposedly the heir to the throne. But intrigue abounds in this country he never knew was his. There are bandits in the mountains, Communists agitating in the towns, and suspicions about the death of Michael's grandfather the King and the disappearance of his cousin Ulrich Karl, who vanished without trace before having the opportunity to ascend the throne. Michael Karl himself is taken hostage by the notorious bandit Black Stefan (whom some say is a werewolf), but contrives to escape and falls in with an American journalist who becomes his friend (though not privy to his true identity). Still, he's not really interested in taking the throne, and when an unexpected revelation about his cousin surfaces, he's entirely ready to take the offered passport and run for the border. Then he finds out some things he wasn't intended to, chiefly that there are conspiracies afoot within the ruling class of Morvania, and suddenly he's up to his neck in swordplay and siege. At first I wasn't really sure about this novel, but gradually it got a grip on me, and I realize that Norton's unique touch was in play even so early (she wrote seven more books between this one and 1952, but only hit her stride in the latter year when her first sf tale, Daybreak - 2250 A.D. (Ace No. G-717; Orig. title: Star Man's Son), was published). By the time the book ended I was sorry to leave Morvania and couldn't help wondering exactly what role was in store for Michael Karl.

I recently came across this while unpacking some boxes in my new house. I hadn't read it for at least a decade, and just finished it yesterday again. I'm not really a "fan" of Andre Norton, as in I just haven't ever read any of her other books, and have no idea why I bought it all those years ago while a freshman in college. It's a great little action novel. The just get on with it kind of book that is so rare to read these days, and so refreshing to find. I'd recommend it to all readers, but especially for teens. It's a great book for a young person, who can empathize with the light of our hero, Michael Karl. My only wish is that she had written another book or two starring the young Prince, and his cousin, The King.

I got it when it first come out and have read it many times sense . It's an adventure story along the lines of Prisoner of Zenda . So many really good books are out of print . Which is a shame . I love this book . Haunting used books stores are a faverite past time of mine .
I'm re reading it right now . I have re read this many times . Like a welcome old friend it is .