Title for fantasy novel: Main character is a prince with 1/2 of a body

[synjin]

Hey Fellow Speculative Fiction Readers,

I can't for the life of me remember the title of a fantasy novel in which the main character, a prince, has only half a body, split down the middle. This doesn't seem to slow him down as he has adventures ridding his kingdom of various curses and recovering the rest of himself a little bit at a time. It had a lot of fairytale elements, and I also think that his mother had become a vampire. I read it maybe 15 years ago.

Thanks for any leads,

Synjin

 

[synjin]

Sorry, 1/2 OF a body.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This is probably wrong, but the basic notion of the nobleman split in half sounds like The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino.

More information here:

The Cloven Viscount - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[synjin]

Re: Title for fantasy novel: Main character is a prince with 1/2 of a body

Thanks, but that's not it. The prince has companions that help him on his quest. And, there is this great scene at the start of the book where the captain of the guard punishes those responsible for the curse on the prince. He cuts their heads off, and then has to do the same to himself since he was in charge of security. He spins the sword up into the air and then does a backflip through the blade to take his own head off. It sounds grizzly, but was written in an amusing way. As I said, it was somewhat Xanth-like.

 

[WizardWillowCrow]

I know this thread is ancient, but if the OP is still around, I an answer for you. I have been searching for this book for years and found an answer today on reddit. One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes.

 

[Danny McG]

. One for the Morning Glory by John Barnes

Well done!
This extract from the Wikipedia entry for that book seems to match very closely....

There is a saying in the land that someone who drinks the Wine of the Gods before he is ready is only half a man thereafter.
Amatus, the prince, manages to swig down a significant amount of the Wine of the Gods, and his entire left half vanishes.
His father, the normally gentle King Boniface, orders the executions of the four people responsible for this travesty—the maid, the alchemist, the witch, and the captain of the guard

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