REVIEWS
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“Fugue” Jay
Caselberg handles an irresolute ending superbly in "Fugue," one of
the best stories in the collection, in which an aging man sees angels and
monsters as a manifestation of his wife's depression. --
Paul Kincaid, Strange Horizons The Star Tablet Caselberg's strong, swift prose brings science fiction and the
good old-fashioned detective story together in a novel that is impossible to
put down. Caselberg excels at weaving fast-paced story, but one that is multi-faceted
as a diamond.... Throughout the novel, Caselberg transports the reader to
futuristic cities and landscapes...THE STAR TABLET is
a prosaic trip to the future, and one worth taking. With an enthralling
universe and clever characters, Caselberg is a shining star in science
fiction." --Jennifer Walker, Dark Wisdom Wyrmhole Wyrmhole Jay Caselberg Roc ( Just when you think no one writes classic
science fiction anymore Jay Caselberg comes
along with a novel that harks back to the Golden Age - but with a dark,
noir undercurrent that is firmly of today’s
cutting-edge. The novel starts with Jack Stein waking up on
a mining base on a remote planet, feeling like
hell (partly from stimulants abuse) and with everyone else mysteriously
gone. Only, as we discover, Stein is really back at the Locality, a brilliantly-imagined organic urban structure, and
the mining planet was, in the best Philip K. Dick tradition, a dream.
But not just any dream... Because Jack Stein
is a Psychic Investigator, hired to discover what happened to the miners
of Dairil III by the shady Outreach
Industries, and dreaming is part of his job. Only
Jack's dreams are becoming darker by the minute... I’ve already mentioned the Locality, and it deserves
mentioning again. Caselberg creates a truly
unique science fictional environment, a city which grows its own
apartments, streets and “ we imagine “ public transport, with the rich living
in New, where everything is freshly-grown, while the truly poor live on
the other side “ in Old. Stein’s
investigation takes him from Old to New, through a city of
corruption to the very heart of the mystery itself, all the while
plagued by visions of Kabbalistic symbols
whose meaning he is desperately trying to understand. A Philip Marlow
for the post-cyberpunk age, Stein is accompanied by Billie, a 12- year old
street kid he rescues from one of his informants, making an important
statement about poverty and life in the future that needs to be listened to. Wyrmhole, despite having a plot-line that is familiar matter to
readers of murder mysteries, is an ambitious,
bleak, both entertaining and thought-provoking science fiction novel
for the 21st century. Caselberg’s debut novel, it
comes highly recommended, and carries with it
the promise of great things yet to come.
-- Dusksite September 2003 -- BooksnBytes,
September, 2003 Jack Stein is a private investigator with an
unreliable psychic power. He is hired by a large corporation to find
out why a party of miners on a distant world disappeared without a trace, but
shortly after accepting the assignment, he is approached by an employee of
that company who insists that upper management is stonewalling.
Initially skeptical, Stein eventually comes to the same conclusion,
particularly when his psi abilities become even
less reliable than usual and more overt attempts are made to prevent him from
accomplishing his mission. This is a pretty good space adventure, and a pretty good first novel as well. No
real surprises in the plot, but it's fast paced enough that you won't mind,
and might not even notice. --Chronicle August, 2003 “Grievous Music” A much better quality of writing enlivens
"Grievous Music" by James A. Hartley. In a dark near-future, nano-enhanced Silent Knights seek out and destroy
Subverts, people who broadcast non-approved messages of free thought and free
speech. We witness Curtis, a Silent Knight, as he performs his duty by
killing a Subvert making an illegal transmission. Shaken by his victim's
convictions, Curtis momentarily sees that she is holding a receiver, not a
transmitter, and that her only "crime" was listening to the message.
Then his nano augmentations kick in, altering his
perceptions and reassuring him that he has done the right thing. The story is
written competently and presents Curtis sympathetically. -- Tangent Online July,
1999 “The Devils Within” For standard fantasy fare, James A.
Hartley’s “The Devils Within” offers a desert-quest setting
with Hawk the swordsman sent into the wasteland to slay devils at the behest
of his tribal shaman. A pleasant, escapist read that offers little in the way
of innovation or surprise, but does offer some eerie moments around the
‘cookpot of the Dead’. -- SF Reader.com January,
2003 |
"Iridescence" When you live in or even near one of the
larger cities, there's a certain sense of dislocation you can feel, with the
city itself, or even with those around you. It's as if there's a layer of
reality -- or unreality -- that you can't quite slice through. 'Iridescence'
by Jay Caselberg, captures that feeling with quiet, tight prose, characters the coalesce into your consciousness and a surreal
scenario that grows ever clearer, and ever more mysterious, as the story
unfolds. Justin and Janessa
are sort-of a couple, making their lives in the never-named city, a city that
has simply up and floated into the clouds, high above the landscape. Meeting Janessa for breakfast, as usual, Justin gets some bad
news; a mutual friend, Ben, has taken The Long Walk, leaving his partner
Amanda behind. The event has implications for all the survivors that lead
them to a greater understanding of themselves and the city. Caselberg creates characters whose reactions
are real enough to lend reality to a potentially hard-to-swallow scenario. He
succeeds admirably, creating a story that has a concrete, vertigo-inducing
reality, but is shot through with dissonances that dislocate the reader into
a pleasantly parallel parable about urban alienation. It's actually quite
powerful and more than a little mysterious. --The Agony Column, March, 2004 “Harvest Rain” The final story is "Harvest Rain", a
thoughtful and intelligent Interzone début by Jay
Caselberg (better known as James A. Hartley). It examines the
"reality" of strongly-held beliefs and "truths" in the
wake of societal breakdown aboard an immense generational starship on a very
long voyage. The crew of the ship has long been rigidly stratified into a
number of distinct classes, each one providing a vital function for the
survival of the ship. However, so long has passed since the journey began
that the real reasons for these divisions have been forgotten. Against this backdrop of ignorance, some members
of the class which grows the food rebel against the hardship and unfairness
of their lives, and against the "Cloud Walkers" who live a
seemingly free life flying in the skies, and who come at intervals to steal
the crops and some members of the farming population. In reality they are
recruiting new members and distributing the food throughout the huge ship --
another vital function -- but the farmers have forgotten this and see
themselves only as victims of attacks and theft. During the violent rebellion
the leader of the farmers is kidnapped by the Cloud Walkers, only to return
later as one of them and attempt to explain the real truth to one of his
former rebel comrades. He unfortunately learns a painful lesson that old
ideas and "truths" die very hard. Overall a very good first story from
Caselberg/Hartley, who has come a long way since his days in the writing
group (the IMPs) of Compuserve's
SF&F Literature Forum (I've been a member of the forum for many years). I
look forward to more stories of the same calibre
from him in Interzone (and elsewhere) in the
future.
-- Tangent Online
August, 2003 “The Ship” This issue opens with "The Ship" by
Jay Caselberg. When I met Jay at TTACon 3 in So there we go: Commander Joshua Abaddon has been in a trip in space, both a long and
twisted one. Let's say he's not returning in one piece. His
talking to an alien; his navigator Alexei has been avoiding him for
ages. But now, his hauler, Demos Queen is coming home, he's longing for
his wife and he'd be damned if he knew where his bloody navigator is... While presented from the very slanted
viewpoint of Abaddon, the actual course of events
clearly arises from the mental haze and the concluding sentence sharply
drives the point home. A neat little shocker, amply demonstrating the
author's intent. -- The Fix The lead story is "The Ship" by Jay
Caselberg, a writer whose star is in ascendance, at the moment. The
psychological damage of its protagonist acts as a veil to obscure the
adultery and murder which takes place off stage and, as such, the story gives
an interesting take on the old theme of space psychosis, though occasionally
Caselberg plays his hand too openly. -- SFSite September, 2003 |