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A review by patrick6367
Low Town by Daniel Polansky
5.0
So, I don't write nearly as many reviews as I did once upon a time, but this particular book surprised me enough that I feel compelled to do so today. I'm not sure why I thought this was a sci-fi dystopian-future novel, but I put off reading it for a long time because of that misconception. I did finally read it because I kept hearing good things about it. I'm glad I did because I thoroughly enjoyed it and churned through it in a less than a day.
This isn't dystopian sci-fi, it's really terrific Grimdark. The world building is excellent, and the writing itself is outstanding. I got caught up in the narrative and swept along in the story and few books are able to do that for me any more. Frankly I'd rate the world-building and story-telling right on up there with Abercrombie and Lawrence, but the characters are not quite as startling vibrant. Since nobody creates memorable characters as well as Joe and Mark, that's hardly a sin. The protagonist is flawed, complex, gritty and reasonably well-drawn. If you like Grimdark stories you should like this book well enough. As others have mentioned it's a noir, murder investigation tale but I thought it was really well done and I kind wait to jump into the sequel.
This isn't dystopian sci-fi, it's really terrific Grimdark. The world building is excellent, and the writing itself is outstanding. I got caught up in the narrative and swept along in the story and few books are able to do that for me any more. Frankly I'd rate the world-building and story-telling right on up there with Abercrombie and Lawrence, but the characters are not quite as startling vibrant. Since nobody creates memorable characters as well as Joe and Mark, that's hardly a sin. The protagonist is flawed, complex, gritty and reasonably well-drawn. If you like Grimdark stories you should like this book well enough. As others have mentioned it's a noir, murder investigation tale but I thought it was really well done and I kind wait to jump into the sequel.