Jay Caselberg

Jay Caselberg is a science fiction writer. I've read two of his books. I didn't love them in the way I love my Sookie Stackhouse books, but I did like them a lot. They're fun easy reading....basic escapist fiction.

I'm wondering how many books Caselberg has written. I'd like to read more. The ones I've read are Wyrmhole and Metal Sky. The books take place in the future, so it's fun to see all the new technology. The protagonist is a psychic detective named Jack Stein. He has dreams and visions that help him solve his cases.

Now I'll go see what Lord Wiki has to say about Caselberg. He looks much older than I imagined him to be. For some reason, I pictured him to be in his thirties, or early forties. I don't think I knew I imagined that until I saw his photo. Then I realized it didn't fit in with what I was expecting.

There's no birthday here, so I don't know how old he is.

He was born in Australia somewhere. Lord Wiki is not being very specific.

Sometimes he writes books under the name James A. Hartley. I'll have to look out for him under that disguise.

In 1969, Caselberg's family went to live in Istanbul. They stayed there for two years. I have no idea how old Caselberg was at the time.

There's a lot of information here about his university studies. He started out wanting a degree in biochemistry, but then switched to psychology. He switched schools and ended up at the University of Wollongong. There he switched to the philosophy and history of science. Well, that's probably a pretty good degree for a science fiction writer.

Caselberg got really into the school thing, and started going after a Doctorate. But when he was close to doing his dissertation, he decided to work instead. He started working for IT companies. Lord Wiki says he worked for a few before finding one he liked. Then he was transfered to London.

During his work with the IT company, he did a lot of traveling. That's cool.

Caselberg got really into wargaming. I'm having to read Lord Wiki's explanation of that. I guess it's playing war. But how? With a board game? Online? Reenactments? Okay. Lord Wiki says it can be any of the above.

In 1996, Caselberg started putting his energy into writing. He took two years off of his other work, and published a few things under the Hartley name. He then went to work for an accounting firm, but he continued to write.

That's pretty much all I get from Lord Wiki. It's a pretty dry career overview. I'll go seek out information elsewhere.

Here's the official Caselberg website. I'm going to be horribly picky and critical here. But I think he should change his link color. It's turquoise, and I don't think it looks good with the blue background. I usually don't notice things like that, or at least let them bother me. What's wrong with me this morning?

Oh shit, and now I'm feeling all competitive. I'm looking at his website visitor counter, and I have had much more visitors than him! Plus, his counter started in 2003! Mine started in 2008. Although he could have reset the counter to zero or something. You never know.

I need to stop my ego in its tracks. So here you go. This is a list of the awards Caselberg has gotten. That's much better than what I've gotten. All I have to my name is a longest brown hair award from fourth grade, and best short story writer from seventh grade. Oh, and I've gotten those blogging awards that we all pass around to each other. Although one person, who gave me a few, ended up hating me and dedicated whole blog posts to how horrible I am. So I probably can't count those awards anymore.

Yeah. Caselberg is definitely beating me in the award category.

Here's a list of his writing. It looks like most of his stuff is articles and stories in various journals. There are two novels I haven't read yet, so that's good news for me. I think they're both Jack Stein adventures.

The turquoise link thing actually looks good on that page. It contrasts nicely with the light yellow background. Actually, I'm not sure if that can be classified as yellow. Maybe?

Here's his biography page. It looks like he copied it straight from Lord Wiki. Or maybe Lord Wiki copied him. The ending is different though. It says, Although his work may be sometimes characterised as "weird," it may never be known as "New Weird." What?! Does anyone understand what that means? If you do, please share!

I've heard of old money and new money. I've never heard of new and old weird.

Oh wait. I'm finding the explanation. Thank you, Lord Wiki. It's a literary movement that did their thing from 2001-2005. Although Lord Wiki says they started in the 1990's. Maybe it took awhile for them to find publishers? There's a description here of New Weird, but I don't understand it. It goes way over my head.

Heres' Caselberg's favorite painting. He really loves it a lot. I wonder why he's so attracted to it. Maybe the painting has some kind of supernatural pull on him. I read a story or novel about that in the last year or so. I wish I could remember what it was. I'm pretty sure it was by an Australian author. Crap. Now this is going to bother me. A man became obsessed with a painting. I remember scenes with a library..... Oh! I know. It was The Ghost Writer. That book kept coming to my brain because it had the same type of eerie Gothic mood as the painting story. But I kept telling myself. No, that's not it. That book was about the penpal relationship. Then I remembered the book had stories within the story.

Caselberg has a novel online. It looks like you can read it for free; although you can make a donation if you want. It's funny. His online novel has the same amount of chapters as my online novel.

Here's a short interview with Caselberg. It says he lives in London, but he still feels he has a connection to Australia.
His favorite swear word is "bullocks". That's one I don't really use. Maybe I should start.

You know...I've been searching, and I'm not finding much else. I think I'm going to quit here.