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A review by richardwells
Low Town by Daniel Polansky
5.0
Almost all the other reviews are going to tell you this book is a mix of noir and fantasy. Ok, fine, though I don't think the genre talk is all that illuminating. "Low Town," is a fantasy that looks to me like book one of a series, and is so good I hope there will be a series. Plot, character, language, and milieu are right on the mark, and it's a quick, humorous, and exciting read that doesn't take itself more seriously than necessary
The Warden was a street urchin saved from the streets by a master sorcerer. He's now all growed up to a life of crime after a horrendous stint in the army and an immersion in the intelligence service. He's a wise cracking addict, dealer, and hustler with a heart of gold who plies his trade in the streets of Low Town, the slums of Rigus. He knows just about everybody worth knowing, and quite a few characters who aren't. He's got partners who run his front business, and he's picked up on his very own urchin for pedagogy and profit, and that's his family unit.
Mayhem is an operating and organizing principle in Low Town, and it's pretty much eye-ball to eye-ball except when the sorcerers get involved and conjure spectral assassins to do their bloody business.
Daniel Polansky has done quite a job of conjuring himself. Like the best fantasy, "Low Town" creates a world with a class and power strata at all levels, customs, rituals, religion, argot, architecture, dress, and even a pharmacopeia of street drugs that seem quite familiar . He's written a hell of a first novel, visual in its own right, and ripe for a movie adaptation.
The Warden was a street urchin saved from the streets by a master sorcerer. He's now all growed up to a life of crime after a horrendous stint in the army and an immersion in the intelligence service. He's a wise cracking addict, dealer, and hustler with a heart of gold who plies his trade in the streets of Low Town, the slums of Rigus. He knows just about everybody worth knowing, and quite a few characters who aren't. He's got partners who run his front business, and he's picked up on his very own urchin for pedagogy and profit, and that's his family unit.
Mayhem is an operating and organizing principle in Low Town, and it's pretty much eye-ball to eye-ball except when the sorcerers get involved and conjure spectral assassins to do their bloody business.
Daniel Polansky has done quite a job of conjuring himself. Like the best fantasy, "Low Town" creates a world with a class and power strata at all levels, customs, rituals, religion, argot, architecture, dress, and even a pharmacopeia of street drugs that seem quite familiar . He's written a hell of a first novel, visual in its own right, and ripe for a movie adaptation.