Caliban's Hour [Hardcover]

Tad Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1994

Beautiful Miranda is compelled to listen to the Beast Caliban's dark tale of desires and wizardry in spite of his ugliness as he weaves a story of passion and longing and creates the magic of love. By the author of Tailchaser's Song.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Williams (To Green Angel Tower) takes a break from his bestselling fantasy epics, venturing into Shakespearean territory with this intriguing retelling of The Tempest. The story begins years later, when the abused slave Caliban, now fully grown, has made his way to Italy and into the chambers of Miranda, Prospero's daughter, whom Caliban once loved and was punished for pursuing. Prospero is long dead and Miranda is now a matron, but Caliban remains bent on revenge-and on having someone hear his story from his point of view. He proceeds to describe his life on the island setting of The Tempest, his first encounters with the shipwrecked Prospero and Miranda and his feelings of betrayal and humiliation at their later treatment of him. Williams wisely focuses on the parts of the story that Shakespeare only hinted at-all the years of Prospero's exile on the island-and though he doesn't veer far from his source, he puts a very different spin on events. His prose is lucid and smooth, and his storytelling effortless, but the tale suffers from familiarity; only at the very end, when Caliban debates whether to kill Miranda, does Williams add an original touch of drama to the tale. Still, this version of Caliban's story has charms of its own. Illustrated by the author.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Driven by the twin ghosts of revenge and love, the misshapen creature known as Caliban leaves his island to confront the object of his hatred and his desire: Prospero's daughter, Miranda. The author of To Green Angel Tower (LJ 3/15/93) departs from epic fantasy in this graceful retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Filtered through the perceptions of Caliban, a tale of rescue becomes a story of abandonment, with salvation and atonement for seemingly unattainable goals. Williams has previously demonstrated his ability to craft original fantasy on a large scale; here he reveals his talent for exploring the hidden recesses of one all-too-human heart. Most libraries should consider this for general fiction or fantasy collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 201 pages
• Publisher: Harper Prism; First Edition edition (December 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061052043
• ISBN-13: 978-0061052040
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,248,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Former singer, shoe-seller, radio show host, and inventor of interactive sci-fi television, Tad Williams is now a full-time writer. His 'Memory, Sorrow and Thorn' series established him as an internationally bestselling fantasy author. The series that followed, 'Otherland', is now a multi-million-dollar MMO launching in 2012 from dtp/realU/Gamigo. Tad is also the author of the fantasy series, the 'Shadowmarch' books; the stand-alone Faerie epic, 'The War of the Flowers'; two collections of short stories ('Rite' and 'A Stark and Wormy Knight'), the Shakespearian fantasy 'Caliban's Hour' and, with his partner & collaborator Deborah Beale, the childrens'/all-ages fantasy series, the 'Ordinary Farm' novels. Coming in September 2012 are the Bobby Dollar novels, fantasy thrillers set again the backdrop of the monstrously ancient cold war between Heaven and Hell: the first is 'The Dirty Streets of Heaven.'

Tad is also the author of 'Tailchaser's Song': his first novel spawned the subgenre of cats and fantasy that we see widely today. 'Tailchaser's Song' is currently in preproduction as an animated film from Animetropolis/IDA.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caliban's Side of the Story, August 19, 2001

By 

Lauryn Angel-cann (Frisco, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Caliban's Hour (Paperback)

This is my first Tad Williams novel, and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed. When my friend thrust this slim volume into my hands, I confess, I had my doubts. Not another entry in the "two-sides-to-every-story" genre. I have to admit that there are some very good novels that fall into this category -- Rys's Wide Sargasso Sea and Maguire's Wicked, to name two -- but there are some very bad novels that fall into this category as well. Caliban's Hour, I'm happy to say, falls into the former category.

Particularly impressive is the way Williams managed to catch the cadences of Shakespeare's Caliban. I had recently finished teaching Shakespeare's The Tempest in a World Literature class prior to picking up this novel, so Shakespeare's Caliban was fresh in my mind. While Williams has a decidedly different approach to the character of Caliban (and, indeed, Ariel), he captures the rhythm and poetry of Shakespeare's character.

At the beginning of Williams's tale, Caliban is a character bent on revenge, and the object of his vengeance is Miranda. It soon becomes clear, however, that what Caliban really wants is a chance to tell his side of the story, to make Miranda understand him. Over the course of one night, he unfolds the story of his life on the island, beginning with his life with Sycorax, his mother, and culminating in the irrevocable changing of his life with the coming of Prospero and Miranda.

True to Caliban's promise that his story will only take one evening, this novel can, indeed, be read in one evening. It's short -- 201 pages -- and the story is compelling enough to keep you turning pages until the story is complete. It does, however, take more than one hour to read!

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unknown and brilliant!, March 4, 1998

By 

Ben Railton ([e-mail]) (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caliban's Hour (Hardcover)

Caliban's Hour is a well-written, moving, and ultimately magical re-writing of _The Tempest_ (in the same basic genre as R+G Are Dead and Grendal). Like many of us (or at least like me), Williams read Shakespeare's play and found himself most attracted to Caliban, the "savage" native who's love for Miranda is brutally refused and who is generally mistreated by Prospero et al. So he decided to re-tell the story from Caliban's point of view, adding in some key background (like scenes with Cicatrix, C's mom) and, of course, the present-day "sequel" elements which make up the book's action. And it works! William's Caliban, like Gardner's Grendal, is an epic, tragic, wonderful character whose story cannot help but enthrall and move. The prose is top-notch (no suprise for anyone familiar with Williams' other works). The debt to Shakespeare, while obvious and intentional, is not over-played, as Williams clearly stakes out his own ground apart from the master. And the ending is both surprising and awesome! All in all, this is one of the better, most underread and -rated books of the last ten years. For anyone who loved Tailchaster, MS&T, or Otherland, anyone who loves Shakespeare, and anyone who appreciates classic literature that reinterprets classic literature, Caliban's Hour is a must read.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The audio version of this book as narrated by Ron Perlman., April 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Caliban's Hour/Audio Cassettes [UNABRIDGED] (Audio Cassette)

The audio version of Tad William's book as narrated by Ron Perlman (of television's "Beauty and the Beast") is absolutely wonderful. The tale is told, for the most part, in Cailban's "voice." Ron Perlman gives Caliban the same sort of realism and pathos that he gave to his television role. William's Caliban, however, is no "Vincent." He has his own agenda to fulfill with Prospero's daughter 20 years after she has left the island. Mr. Perlman's voice is mezmerizing and he gives Caliban the perfect voice with which to tell his tale.