Prince in Waiting (1970) John Christopher, Collins Educational
ISBN 0-00-330010-2
The story is told from the point of view of the central character, the protagonist, teenage Luke. As the story opens, he is about to turn thirteen, and he is concerned with typical teenage boy things, such as friends, fighting, and competition. Luke has been practicing with his sword ready for the big contest, and battle game where armies of boys are led by four captains against each other.
This book is set in feudal England, with a medieval level of technology. Each of the cities across England has their own Prince, who rules as an absolute monarch. There are no parliaments. However, The cities all have modern names. Each of these cities is competition with one another, and there is constant conflict and war between them all. It is expected of each Prince to lead his army out against a neighbouring city. Any perception of weakness will bring another city’s army to your door. All cities are therefore walled and fortified.
Machinery is outlawed, and perceived as evil. To mess with machines is thought to bring about ruin. The mythology of the society says that the machines brought about the great destruction. All buildings are made of wood, and characters express the idea that constructing large buildings out of stone or concrete is asking for trouble. They think that using machines, and building in anything other than wood, is arrogance leading to an individual’s, or a society’s downfall.
“Although no one would now be so foolish as to build in stone it was used in foundations, and from time to time men took loads from the ruins for this purpose”.
Along with this medieval style thinking, women are only allowed household duties, and must not have any occupation other than running a home. There are such things as “Polymufs” who are humans that have deformities. They are not classed as human, have very little rights, and must work as a servant to a human. Humans do not do manual work. Polymufs are really humans of course, and there is a veiled reference to polymufs occurring after the great destruction. This gives the idea that these people are suffering deformity due to radiation or chemical exposure of some kind. If a human has a polymuf baby they must give it away to be a servant. Animals that are born polymuf are killed. The segregation of human polymufs, and the slaughter of animal polymuff is the character’s way of containing the abnormalities. There are also Dwarves, again human really, just suffering from dwarfism. These too are treated as a separate race, and all dwarves are trained as craftsmen. No human works a forge etc, he employs a dwarf to do it for him.
All of the characters in the novel believe in “spirits” that guide them. These spirits are the spirits of the ancestors. Seers who are secretive, and wear white robes similar to priests interpret these spirits. When someone wants to ask the spirits something, a seer will consult the spirits for them, and pass on the answer. Magic is a part of this process, and adds to the spectacle created by the seers. Christians are mocked, and live in poor conditions alongside polymufs, who they consider equal to humans. The rest of the society sees this as laughable.
“When one thought of the Christians in the city, a handful of wretches living mostly by the north gate, so warped and degraded that they accepted polymufs as members of their sect and as equals”
Clues are slowly revealed that this is actually the future, and not the past. The first clue was the name of the cities, and the second some writing on a piece of wood.
“The section of wood in which the bar was fixed was a piece salvaged from olden time. There had been letters painted on it once and though the paint had long worn away one could see, when the sun shone brightly, the outlines of the words that had been written there. I had traced them one day, with difficulty. RADIO & TV DEAL, the message ran. A wasted labour, to find something that meant nothing”.
I like the way this passage reveals something in a casual manor, using an unimportant object. This really made me want to work out what was happening, and helped to get me on the lookout for further clues as to what was going on. This is really useful for getting people to read your entire story, and it makes things more interesting if you find out little bits at a time.
There are many subtle layers within this book, and the fortunes of the characters flip and change throughout the novel. There are many twists and turns. Even the secret sect of the seers that publicly eschews all machines, and communes with spirits, is revealed to be the power behind all things, manipulating events. Behind close doors, they admit to being frauds, using tricks to make it look like there are spirits, and even using machines. Just when you think the Prince in waiting has lost his chance of becoming a Prince, he is offered the chance to become more than that, the prince of princes, a leader for united England.
That is where the story ends, and we never know if Luke will unite everyone, if he learns about all of the machines, etc. I feel as if there is another book in there somewhere. I seam to remember Scheherazade saying to the sultan in Arabian nights that all the best storytellers ended on cliffhanger. How else are you to keep people interested in your work? Well I was definitely interested in reading more.
What I have learned;
- That information can be eked out throughout the book
- This information can be revealed casually, and does not always need to be a big announcement
- Many changes in circumstances for main characters keep the reader interested
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