The Author
Tad Williams is the New York Time’s best-selling author of To Green Angel Tower. He is also a serial fantasy fiction writer; his series include Mirrorworld, Shadowmarch, and Otherworld.
The Book
The main story in the book is Caliban’s personal narrative. He tells the story of his life from his earliest pre-language memories, to his perspective on Miranda and Prospero, and on through the time when they escape the island. His story is bracketed by his appearance in Naples twenty years after their life on his island. In Naples, he tracks down Miranda with the intention of telling her his story and then killing her. In the end, he leaves Miranda alive and takes with him another.
The bookends to the story are short. Miranda changes little through the course of the story. Shallow and rather self-centered; she remains, as she always, was beautiful Miranda always seeking her own comfort.
Caliban’s argument for telling his story is that he wanted to prove that he wasn’t the savage that Miranda and Prospero perceived him to be. Unfortunately, William’s doesn’t succeed in proving his argument. Caliban’s savage nature is proved by the single-mindedness he applied to finding Prospero then Miranda so that he could avenge his loss of innocence.
His savagery is proven throughout the novel. While his brutality has roots in his mistreatment and betrayal, it doesn’t justify his behavior. Caliban is like a mean dog, he licks the hand of his owner as long as he is treated well but bites at the slightest offence.
What Williams does prove is his ability to write descriptive passages that create a beautiful reality for the reader. For example:
On my island I existed in a world of unquestionable things. The great rock above the beach had no name, but I knew it, and knew what it was: something upon which I could climb to see far out across the ocean’s face. A family of lizards nested there...I did not think of them as being more alive than the great stone, or of some higher order of being – no more than I thought so of myself. They moved, I moved; the rock did not. And yet, sometimes an entire afternoon passed when both the lizards and I were as still as the great shelf of stone – while for all I knew, perhaps there were times when the stone itself walked, or crawled, or even flew, and I simply had not seen such a moment.
In my mind, that great rock was a thing just as the lizards were things, each one, and I did not try to compare it with anything else. It simply was. I simply was.
In Conclusion
While the story and characters do not have a satisfying depth, the flights of language taken by Williams will justify this book for some readers.
Williams, Tad. Caliban’s Hour. Published by HarperPrism. ISBN 0-06-105204-3
