Caliban by Lorina Stephens

When I first started reading Caliban, I was instantly reminded of a much older science fiction novel that I reviewed back in KODT issue #257, Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement.

This is because of the protagonist, who is meant to be incredibly alien, with a very alien physiology as well as culture.

I mean, in much of science fiction, aliens are just variations on the human condition. Klingons are humans with too much testosterone who watch ultimate fighting championships to unwind, for example.

But the further I got into Caliban, the more I was reminded of Mission of Gravity, because in many ways this feels like a novel that would have been perfectly at home in that era of SF, or even the original era of Star Trek.

I don’t say this as a criticism, but rather a revelation. A reminder that there is room for all kinds of science fiction out there, and not just the current trends in hard and soft SF.

Our protagonist, Tine, is a Caliban, a troll-like person from the world of Setebos. His people live harsh and often violent lives, though they are not a warrior culture. Violence is a matter of survival on their harsh world. The Caliban are isolated from the rest of the galactic community due to a spore present in them that would most likely kill them should they ever leave their homeworld, or kill anyone coming to this world.

While this novel features an extremely alien protagonist, there are familiar elements within the world building. The United Order of Planets might as well be a Federation proxy, the ruling body of a reasonably peaceful galaxy.

It’s a place that Tine envies and even pines to be a part of. He is, in fact, an Active agent of the UOoP, in their Interplanetary Criminal Investigation Bureau. But, given that his world doesn’t really have crime and he can’t leave, one wonders how much use he actually is to the ICIB.

At the start of the book, he is offered a remarkable opportunity to investigate a missing (possibly dead) person on a distant world. But to do so, he will have to leave his home, his wife and his children for good. The process that would allow him leave Setebos is most likely a one-way ticket.

Tine has been chosen for this mission for a very specific reason. More so than any other race in the UoOP, the Caliban have a strong instinct and connection with their world, creating an unshakeable sense of self. And that unerring sense of self is just what’s needed when the mystery you’re asked to uncover will have you questioning reality.

You see, the missing person didn’t just disappear. They were replaced with an illusion that eventually evaporated.

And there’s only one place in the galaxy that is capable of that, the world of Edain.

Edain is a world of pleasure, art, and luxury. The Dreamweavers who live there are capable of creating the most wondrous things, seemingly out of thin air.

Tine is considered the perfect person to investigate because he is such an oddity, and as such he is given the cover of being the first Setebos Ambassador off world, hoping to engage the services of Dreamweavers for his own world.

But Tine is not only ugly by our standards, he is also barbaric, blunt, and disgusting in his personal habits. But those very traits that would seem to be a disadvantage are an advantage on the decadent world of Edain. Because there, he is an oddity, unusual, unique… just the thing for a world of bored and pampered aristocrats.

This is a book with big ideas in the classic SF sense. The mystery behind the alleged murder, the Dreamweavers, and all the various parties who are interested in their actions, would be right at home in an episode of Star Trek, old or new. But it would be one of the episodes where the solution has nothing to do with firing photon torpedoes, but rather understanding and confronting what is really going on.

And very quickly, we come to realize that it’s hard to know who to trust or even what their motives are. Everyone from Tine’s superior, Jabod, to the head Dreamweaver, Ela.

There is a lot of subtext going on here. Lorina Stephens chose to have Caliban ugly as sin on purpose, to eventually have us question ourselves for thinking it. Tine is described with many grotesque details, everything from cloven hooves, wart-covered oily skin, and lots of claws and teeth. Even his behaviour is crude and brutish. However, none of these are added to gross you out.

Instead, as time goes on and these details are repeated, they become normalized. You associate the oils that ooze out of his warts, which he then rubs into his hide, as no different than a human rubbing his chin in thought or scratching an itch. You come to see Tine as simply Tine.

We also come to understand both his fascination and frustration with our world, such as having to deal with cooked food that isn’t screaming, or napkins and utensils, or polite speech that skirts around what is really being said. For someone with such a strong sense of self, such things feel like self-deception.

Yet at the same time he is not happy with who he is, and feels there is more to life than the world he knows, and is willing to abandon it just for a chance to see what that might be, even if it confuses him. I think most of us have looked to the world beyond our door, and saw the world we wished we were part of, but weren’t.

Tine is, above all else, intelligent. While he is a Caliban through and through, he also seeks to understand the wider galaxy. And because he sees things plainly, he is able to cut through the deceptions all around him in order to get to the truth. They might even allow him to see through the Dreamweavers.

Another bit of subtext I feel comes as we understand more about the Dreamweavers themselves. It is fair to say that nothing is as it seems when you have a species based on crafting illusion, but there are issues of exploitation and even darker themes lying at the heart of this mystery.

I suppose there is one tiny warning I should share about this book. There is an interspecies orgy that takes place, which is kinda graphically described… but of course, we’re talking about aliens here, so it’s not really… the parts aren’t… I mean, if you look at a bee on a flower a certain way you could say the flower is… er…

It’s just weird, okay? But it does serve a purpose.

This is a book I would recommend for fans of science fiction who prefer big ideas and mystery to action and adventure. For a modern SF novel, it has a very refreshing feel for the past.