Unfortunately, this reissue edition of the novel is seriously marred by typesetting errors. I have never seen a book with this many serious typos. There is not a single page without multiple errors, including one instance where a block of several paragraphs is printed twice. Wrong letters, wrong punctuation, missing letters, missing punctuation, omitted spaces between words, missing strings of words, hyphenated words in the middle of lines, missing section breaks, misplaced section breaks--the book is filled with them. I am an independent publisher and I do book design and typesetting. I would be utterly mortified to send a book to press in this condition. Obviously, the author shares no blame in how the book is printed, but I found myself wondering whether I could fairly review a book that has so many typographical mistakes. More than once, I found a sentence that was incomprehensible, and I don't know if that was due to the writing or the typesetting. The Prologue and Chapter One start with the same set of dates, so it took me several chapters to figure out how much time has passed and how old Don Rolon is when he's introduced. That was made even trickier by the fact that the synopsis on the back cover is inaccurate.
Technical problems aside, Lost Prince does draw a richly detailed portrait of a time and place you would never want to live in. It offers a different concept of werewolves than the current trend, and presents several complex and engaging characters, especially the dwarf court jester, Lugantes. Fans of Yarbro's Saint-Germain series will find many similarities and parallels to those books, and might enjoy reading Lost Prince in conjunction with Darker Jewels, set in the same time period but a very different society, 16th century Russia. However, I strongly urge Borderlands Press to correct the plates for Lost Prince before printing any more copies.
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