Bad
Prince Charlie
John Moore
Ace Books, April 2006
ISBN 0-441-01396-1
Review by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
Once upon a time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a fad for funny fantasy. Writers like Terry Pratchett and Robert Asprin had been successful with fantasy novels that mocked the conventions of the genre to humorous effect. Publishers had noticed that these books were making money, and after the fashion of publishers everywhere, they promptly started looking for more of the same, so that they could get a share of the money.
Thus readers found themselves offered a flood of "funny fantasy" novels; besides Pratchett and Asprin, books by Tom Holt, Craig Shaw Gardner, Esther M. Friesner, John Morressy, and a score of other authors appeared, trying to cash in. Full disclosure here; I collaborated on one of them myself, when Esther and I wrote Split Heirs, and I'd have been happy to write more.
Some of these novels were pretty damn good, though not everyone will agree on which.
Far too many, however, lacked that certain something called "actually being funny." They substituted puns for wit and stupidity for absurdity, and were filled with things that looked like jokes but weren't, in that they didn't make readers laugh.
As a result, sales dropped off drastically somewhere around 1993, and the popular wisdom among publishers became, "funny fantasy doesn't sell anymore." The fad was over. Attempts to point out that, say, Pratchett still sold well would be greeted with, "That's different; he's British," or some other reason for considering him an exception. Esther and I were unable to interest anyone in a sequel to Split Heirs, even though it sold quite well, because "funny fantasy doesn't sell anymore."
The prohibition is stronger at some publishers than others. Ace had been a real hotbed of funny fantasy during the fad, made pots of money off it, and has been a little more willing to consider it in post-fad times than most New York publishing houses.
I'm very glad of that, because it means they were willing to take a chance on John Moore.
Or, well, it wasn't really much of a chance, because Moore's first novel, Slay and Rescue, and the later The Unhandsome Prince, had been published in Europe and done well there. That convinced Ace to give Moore a shot, and they've now published three of his novels: Heroics for Beginners, The Unhandsome Prince, and Bad Prince Charlie.
These are all set in the Twenty Kingdoms, Moore's fantasy world of fairy-tale lands. They have handsome princes and evil overlords and mad magicians and beautiful princesses – and puns and jokes and mockery of all sorts. They're funny fantasy very, very much in the style of the fad of twenty years ago.
Well, except that they really are funny, as so many weren't, back then.
Bad Prince Charlie is the story of the bastard prince of the tiny kingdom of Damask, whose uncles talk him into playing the evil regent in a scheme that they say will save Damask from disaster. Naturally, things don't go quite as the uncles planned, starting when the ghost of Charlie's royal father turns up on the parapet. All works out well in the end. Large chunks of the story draw heavily on Hamlet, but Moore does not leave the stage littered with corpses as the Bard did.
The landscape does get littered with coffee shops, though.
Although Moore's invented world does have its own internal consistency, he doesn't hesitate to base humor on the real world; in addition to the plague of coffee shops and the resemblances to Hamlet, Bad Prince Charlie includes references to WMDs ("Weapons of Magical Destruction"), New Age stoners, television meteorologists, engineering students, and the works of several other authors of funny fantasy. (Alas, I can't be too specific without ruining some of the gags.)
Moore's prose is always serviceable, and often rises to the level of genuine wit, but he's no great literary stylist. He's not trying to be, and with his comic timing and clever phrasing, he doesn't need to be. He tells a fast-moving story with characters who work up to at least two dimensions, if not a full three. His plotting is complex, but clear. A John Moore novel isn't a literary feast, but it's a first-rate bit of fast food fluff.
Hey, maybe he'll start a new fad for funny fantasy! Aren't we about due?
Bad Prince Charlie is perhaps not as funny as Heroics for Beginners, which remains my favorite of Moore's novels, but it's no disappointment, either. It's a good light read. Give it a try.
