Low Town: A novel [Hardcover]

Daniel Polansky (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 16, 2011

Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops . . . and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.

In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its cham­pion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs. Every day is a constant hustle to find new customers and protect his turf from low-life competition like Tancred the Harelip and Ling Chi, the enigmatic crime lord of the heathens.

The Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his dis­covery of a murdered child down a dead-end street . . . set­ting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House—the secret police—he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investi­gated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psy­chotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted.

Daniel Polansky has crafted a thrilling novel steeped in noir sensibilities and relentless action, and set in an original world of stunning imagination, leading to a gut-wrenching, unforeseeable conclusion. Low Town is an attention-grabbing debut that will leave readers riveted . . . and hun­gry for more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“For a first-time author, Polansky has managed to craft an assured, roaring, and rollicking hybrid, a cross-genre free-for-all that relishes its tropes while spitting out their bones. And he does it all while spinning one hell of a gripping mystery. Much like its grim, perversely charismatic antihero, Low Town stakes a narrow turf—then completely owns every inch of it.” The A.V. Club (The Onion)

“Festooned with sorcerers and demons in a pre-industrial otherworld setting, Low Town…is a fantasy-crime hybrid with serious noir chops…Gritty, cryptically funny and relentlessly inventive.” – Winnipeg Free Press

“Low Town is a strong, confident debut that should go down well with readers who enjoy their fantasy on the noir side. It’s a novel you can enjoy for its atmosphere as well as its story, full as it is of well-drawn scenes from the city’s underbelly.…Low Town delivers a fast, entertaining story in less pages than it takes some major epics to get out of the realm of basic exposition. I had a blast with Low Town, and I’m definitely keeping an eye out for whatever Daniel Polansky comes up with next.”--Tor.com

“If you like noir and hard-boiled mysteries, you might want to give Low Town a chance. You’ll definitely find it darkly rewarding.” New York Journal of Books

"Polansky hits all the right notes in his intelligent first novel, a blend of dystopian fantasy and hard-boiled crime....Sharp, noir-tinged dialogue and astute insights into class struggle mark Polansky as a writer with a future." -- Publishers Weekly

"A strong debut novel with a hero who doesn’t waste time worrying about the moral implications of cutting someone’s throat." -- Kirkus

"Polansky's writing is confident and punchy from the offset. The action rips along at a brilliant pace allowing us to experience this gritty world through the eyes of a thrilling, dangerous, flawed, yet strangely endearing protagonist. This is modern, dark fantasy at its best and a debut to be envied." -- British Fantasy Society

"Quite brilliant...[Low Town] is as good a debut as I've read in along time. [It] has it all - and as the name suggests, it is sharp, steely and viciously bloody. Highly recommended." --John Berlyne, SF Revu

About the Author

DANIEL POLANSKY is from Baltimore, Maryland. Low Town is his first novel.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (August 16, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385534469
• ISBN-13: 978-0385534468
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #942,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Noir Fantasy June 4, 2011

By Robin Friedman HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I have been reading a good deal of history of late and welcomed the opportunity to read a different type of book such as the gritty, noir literature I enjoy. I also was interested in this new novel, "Low Town" because its young author, 26-year old Daniel Polansky, had been a student of philosophy in college, as I had been long ago.

"Low Town" is a mixture of noir and fantasy. These two types of genre writing seem incongrous at first. Noir demands a strong sense of place. a hardness, and a sense of realism. These qualities don't seem to mix well with fantasy. But for the most part, this book works. The book is set in Low Town, which is the tawdry lowlife section in a city called Rigus in a country called the Thirteen Lands. It is hard to put a time on ths story, Many of the traits of Rigus are loosely medieval but some a strikingly modern. (A grand piano is a fixture in some of the scenes.) But the world of the book differs in externals from places people know. Polansky has developed an elaborate story for his Thirteen Lands, replete with terminology for coinage and officialdom, its social structure, its own drugs of choice, and its gods and goddesses and theology. It is not a modern world, as Polansky's story relies heavily on sorcerors (there is a prestigious school for sorcery in the Thirteen Lands) and strange and unbelievable powerful and vile monsters conjured from the Beyond. Sorcery and monsters are ordinarily not the stuff of noir.

The noir elements of the story also are recognizable and ultimately are predominant in this book. The setting in Low Town, with its overcrowdedness, alleys, poverty, crime, bars, drugs, flophouses, and unsavory characters would be at home in virtually any large city. It has a sense of familiarity. The book's hero, a taciturn, hard 35-year old man called Warden is a prototypical noir figure. Warden grew up on the streets where he appeared headed for a life of crime. He was given the opportunity to escape this life and served in the army and in Rigus' cruelly efficient secret police, headquartered in a place called the Black House. But the Warden left Black House in disgrace and went back to his life of selling and using drugs in Low Town and running what appears to be a crime syndicate. As a good noir hero, Warden has a vulnerable side. He is especially protective of young children facing the vicissitudes of life on the streets. He rescues several such children, with varying results, during the course of the story.

Much of the book, as with noir, takes place in a bar. It is called the Staggering Earl which the Warden owns together with the proprietor, a crude, large garrolous individual named Adolphus. Adolphus and the Warden are fast friends and in their differences complement each other. The characters of the various people in the book, especially the Warden, are developed slowly and by indirection, with considerable subtelty. The writing is sharp, observant, and pithy.

The plot turns on the murders of three small children, two girls and a boy, in Low Town over a short time. Although he has been cashiered from the police force, the Warden is brought in to solve the crimes at the threat of excruciating torture and death if he does not succeed within a week. Warden is diligent, ruthless, and efficient, if not always perceptive. He is double and triple crossed and follows many blind leads. The book is replete with fighting, violence of every stripe, and much graphically described killing. Amulets, sorcerers and monsters have an integral role in the book.

As part of the pre-release publicity for "Low Town", Polansky identified Dashiell Hammett, Tolkien, and Quentin Tarantino as among the influences on the book. This novel appears to be the first in what will become a series. Polansky has done something novel and creative in this mixture of noir and fantasy. The book shows, as Polansky suggests in his pre-release interview, that human nature remains constantly recognizable in all its guises even when the surroundings are imagined. To my reading, the book is weakened in its element of fantasy as opposed to realism of the noir genre. But readers enjoying fantasy settings may well be intrigued by this noir story of murder toughness, and redemption in the Thirteen Lands.

Robin Friedman

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A noir fantasy that's not to be missed! August 16, 2011

By MyBookishWays

Format:Hardcover

Our hero,the Warden,is a scarred man,inside and out,however,he's carved out a niche for himself in Low Town,dealing drugs and enjoying a certain shabby comfort under the watchful eye of his friend Adolphus and his doting wife. The Warden has a past in law enforcement,but one mistake cost him that career,so now he gets by the best he can. When he comes upon the body of a little girl,murdered and left for dead in the street,he finds himself sucked in to a diabolical evil,and compelled to find the person,or thing,responsible for her death. Unfortunately,her death won't be the only one... Aided by a street urchin named Wren,his friends on the street,and even some friends in high places,the Warden will have to track down a man that won't hesitate to use magic for murder.

I really,really enjoyed Low Town. There were none of the growing pains that are sometimes present in first novels,and it reads like a crime thriller. However,Low Town is not of our world. Daniel Polansky took our world,twisted it in on itself,steeped it in magic and set it loose. The effect is nothing short of dazzling. You'll meet underworld criminals,petty thieves,street kids,prostitutes with unearthly beauty,and creatures only found in nightmares. Low Town is fast paced,gritty,with plenty of action to satisfy any crime/thriller fan,and more than enough magic to make fantasy fans equally happy. All this,and a twist that this jaded reader didn't see coming,make Low Town a fantasy/noir treat that's not to be missed!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A strong, confident debut August 23, 2011

By Stefan TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In a grimy dump of a room above a bar lives the Warden, a man who has led many lives but now finds himself as low as ever. A former soldier and police officer, he is now addicted to the drugs he sells for a living in the territory he carved out for himself in Low Town, the seediest district in the city of Rigus. He's become a cynical man, leading a dark and violent life, but when he finds the abused corpse of a young girl who went missing a few days earlier, he can't help getting pulled into the investigation, which will inevitably bring him into contact with parts of his past he'd rather stay clear of. So begins Low Town, the promising debut fantasy novel by Daniel Polansky...

If it wasn't clear from that opening paragraph, Low Town is fantasy noir. It's a dark novel about cynical people in a grimy part of town. Its main characters are street hustlers, petty criminals, and corrupt cops. It's set in a part of the city where actual law enforcement officers tread lightly and a rough sort of justice is usually enforced by whichever crime lord runs that particular area. It starts off with Warden taking a hit of pixie's breath -- one of the drugs he both sells and frequently uses -- to help him face the day, and then tossing the contents of his bed pan out of the window into the alley below before trudging down to the bar below for his breakfast. No sparkly elves making merry in this fantasy, folks.

Warden is a fascinating main character. When we meet him at the start of the novel, he has become an anti-hero who has settled down at the low point of his adult life, but throughout Low Town you'll get bits and pieces of information that allow you puzzle together his back story, showing exactly how far he's fallen. The story is told from his first person perspective, so you'll get a very close look at the workings of his mind. He may seem cynical and selfish, but at several instances you'll also see a softer side of his personality, especially when it comes to children. Still, when faced with misfortune, he usually chooses between getting drunk, getting high, beating someone up, or all of the above.

Early on, I expected this to be a novel with a strong protagonist and a bunch of flat side characters, but instead I found that many of the bit players eventually take on enough life to become interesting in their own right. Adolphus, who runs the Staggering Earl bar and soldiered with Warden in the past, shows a gruff but good-natured demeanor that eventually reveals a softer side. (For some reason, he reminded me of Dan Goodman's character in The Big Lebowski.) Wren is a razor-sharp street urchin who becomes Warden's protégé. The Crane is the First Sorcerer of the Realm, responsible for saving the city in the past but now fading into old age, and Celia is his apprentice. Crispin is Warden's former partner in the city's police force (and at one point memorably tells Warden "You've become everything you ever hated.") Several of these characters start out being one-dimensional but eventually many of them take on enough detail and personality to become fascinating in their own right. Despite initial appearances, Low Town isn't a one-man show, which is promising for future novels in this series.

Aside from the characters, the other main attraction of this novel is its setting. There's an entire fantasy world here, even though the novel is set entirely in one small part of it and we only see bits and pieces of the rest of the world. Daniel Polansky makes several references to other cities and countries, various religions, past wars, and plagues that ravaged the city. The actual rulers never take the stage in this novel, but we do see examples of decadent nobility, a corrupt police force, and a terrifying intelligence bureau. There are also several distinct human races, and although it's easy to draw parallels with races from our own world, they still add realism to the overall picture. The author packs a lot of world-building detail into this relatively short novel, which again makes me curious to see future novels set in Low Town or the wider world.

Daniel Polansky paints the darkness, grime and depravity of Low Town with broad, bold strokes. Occasionally the noir is laid on a bit too thickly, but most of the time Polansky's prose displays a skill and grace that's unexpected for a debut novel. Being stuck inside the mind of a grim, cynical character can be hard to bear for an entire novel, but Warden shows enough wit and irreverence ("Up close she looked like someone better seen from farther away.") to turn Low Town into an entertaining and frequently funny read, even if the subject matter is on the dark side.

Low Town was published in the UK as The Straight Razor Cure, and as evocative as that UK title is, this is one of the few novels where I prefer the US title. It just fits the novel better. I also think the US cover is considerably more appropriate than the UK one. We didn't really need another mysterious hooded figure, especially one with its hand on fire. The brick-wall-and-graffiti cover of the US edition is perfect for this novel.

Low Town is a strong, confident debut that should go down well with readers who enjoy their fantasy on the noir side. It's a novel you can enjoy for its atmosphere as well as its story, full as it is of well-drawn scenes from the city's underbelly. It's also a tightly written book, which is something many people will appreciate in an age of novels with dramatis personae lists that take up several pages. Low Town delivers a fast, entertaining story in fewer pages than it takes some major epics to get out of the realm of basic exposition. I had a blast with Low Town, and I'm definitely keeping an eye out for whatever Daniel Polansky comes up with next.