Muse by Craig Ranapia

Test

Yay, and book blog. This sounds great. Do you think it would be suitable for a young reader fresh from the Divergent series?

Do you think it would be suitable for a young reader fresh from the Divergent series?

I'll give you a heavily qualified "yes" on that. Mann is a very dense level up from standard YA prose, but definitely worth the effort. If you're looking for entry level Mann, I'd say get the little boogers hooked on Master of Paxwax -- it worked for me.

I don’t know that Eleanor Catton got much press until she’d actually won, did she? Books not being interesting unless we beat the world with them. <sigh>

I’m grateful for your heads-up Craig – I look forward to reading this. :-)

So why, as far as I can tell, hasn’t this gotten any mainstream media attention at all?

I’m guessing because it’s genre fiction. It doesn’t belong in the nice drawing rooms of literary fiction. (Not my own opinion I’ll add). And while there may occasionally be a story on Eleanor Catton in mainstream media it’s only because she won the 2013 Writers’ World Cup or something.

There is also the radio version where Dick Weir narrates both Master of Paxwax and The Fall of the Families in their entirety with voices. It still gets played at ungodly hours on Radio New Zealand Nights. Still available from Replay Radio. A bit pricey, but so tempting!

I’d say get the little boogers hooked on Master of Paxwax – it worked for me.

Thanks for the recommendation. :-)

Eleanor Catton did get press when nominated, but definitely not as much as compared to when she won.

I think it's appalling, really, although I wonder if there would have been more publicity if he'd been nominated for a Hugo. As an SF reader, I have to admit I have greater awareness of those nominees (also, in terms of what my friends follow as well) than the A.C. Clarke awards. Although I certainly think it's prestigious enough to be picked up by NZ media.

I'll have to admit to being woefully ignorant of Phillip Mann. I've got no idea why, but I'll fix that sharpish. I do think that SF generally gets pretty short shrift as "genre" fiction rather than "real literature", whatever that is, maybe that's why it hasn't been mentioned.

Thought I'd seen that name before. You can still stream the reading of his story "Wulfsyarn" from the RNZ National site.

I have tested your recommendations - a post of yours over at io9 put me on to Alif The Unseen - and I like the results! I will now be searching out Phillip Mann, thankyouverymuch.