17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
History re-enacted, January 13, 2002
This review is from: Calling Crow (Paperback)
The moving story of Calling Crow is not only a pleasure to read, it brings history to life in vivid pictures and unforgetable scenes. The novel chronicles the adventures of the Chief of the peacuful Muskagee tribe, Calling Crow, who is captured by Spanish conquistadores. Calling Crow narrowly escapes death and is taken as a slave to Hispaniola, where further humiliations await him. He has no other option but to adapt to some of the Spanish ways, such as learning the language, and finds a particular friend in the gentle Spanish Priest. But all the time his inner rebellion is nourished by the need to return to his native village, and the woman he is betrothed to.
The story is told in part from Calling Crow's third person perspective, and partly from the perspective of various Spanish protagonists. I personally preferred the Calling Crow perspective; as I could immediately identify with him, feel the pain of his separation from his home village and the woman he loves, and his longing to return home. Clayton very competently lets us see the new world that is opening up tp Calling Crow through his own eyes; the Spanish wear "skins of metal" and they carry "thundersticks". When he first sees a horse he thinks it is a huge dog, and is terrified; at first I was not quite certain what a "jagged hill" was, until he began walking up it and I realised it was a staircase!
The novel is very competently written. Clayton does not divide the characters into the "good" natives and the "bad " Spaniards. He shows how many of the captured become weak and lethargic in captivity; not every one of them possesses Calling Crow's bravery, quick-wittedness and strength of character. Similarly, the Spanish are not presented simply as cruel caricatures, but as characters with many dimensions, their cruel actions sometimes arising from simple self-preservation.
Throughout the story the reader is drawn forward by Calling Crow's overwhelming need to escape and return home. We yearn with him for the safety and comfort of his home village, and we look forward to the reunion with his friends of old. When it does happen, however, there is a surprise for Calling Crow, and the reader... we find out that there can never be a going back, only a moving forward. Of which we can find out more in the sequel!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling fiction that rises well above the pack., June 15, 1996
By A Customer
Set on the Southeast coast in the mid-16th century, this beautifully-written first novel tells the story of Calling Crow, a Muskogee Indian. The reader is reminded of modern tales of UFO alien abductions as Calling Crow is taken prisoner by men with metal skins (Spaniards). Imprisoned inside the strange cloudboat, Calling Crow is taken away. On the island of Hispaniola, he is baptized, brutalized, then forced to work in the silver pit mines. Along with the other slaves, Calling Crow sinks into despair and ill health. After repeated escape attempts, and on the verge of death, he is rescued by a kindly Spanish priest. With his new, limited freedom, Calling Crow learns the ways of the Spanish and plans his next escape. He meets and falls in love with another captive, Juana of the Arawak people. Finally, as part of a massive Spanish campaign to conquer the mainland of Florida, Calling Crow and Juana manage to slip away from their captors. Despite incredible odds, and after several years, Calling Crow makes his way back to his home village, bringing the novel to its startling conclusion.
Genre fiction that rises well above the pack. Compelling and thought provoking.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Novel, November 18, 2003
This review is from: Calling Crow (Paperback)
Calling Crow - a chief of a Muskogee tribe at what is now the sourtheast territory of USA - went to the coast to find out what were those rare cloudships seeing at the ocean and in a brutal way he made contact with the europeans who imprisoned, shipped him to Santo Domingo colony, enslaved and forced to work extracting gold from the rivers where he received hard punishment and humilliating treatment because of his resistence. Calling Crow dreams of freedom are fulfilled when he is taken to mainland continent again as a helper in a disastrous expedition to conquer Florida in the name of the Catholic King of Spain from where he escape and return to his tribe where he found resistence to believe everything he was telling about the Spaniards but also he had to run away to safe his life because unconscuously he brought diseases unknown to his tribes and decimate it.
This is a very interesting story that is narrated with a native point of view that express his reasoning about the clash of the cultures everything about the new civilization and religion and about everybody he meet in the colony, spaniards and captived indians, their way of thinking, believing and living.
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