A review by cupiscent
Low Town: the Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky

4.0

This is so close to being really excellent that I'm possibly more disposed to be harsh on its flaws. It was occasionally a magnificent exercise in language (from the arch-Confucian slanging matches to the pithy reflections) but occasionally merely good. It's a charmingly complex and historied world, but a somewhat same-old urban setting. The Chinese-based race teetered alarmingly on the verge of racefail now and then; I'm quite uncomfortable with some of the decisions made there. But our "hero" is convincingly part of a really gritty underworld in a way that far too often thief-heroes aren't.

Overall, I feel like it was quite a short, sharp and simple story; done very well, but I would have really loved some complexity, complication, extrapolation... MORE. I'm really just terribly demanding.