FICTION
Daniel Polansky
Daniel Polansky was born in Baltimore. He currently resides abroad. LOW TOWN is his first novel.
Two men came walking past first, porters or one-time porters, thick legs and bent backs and mean eyes.
— from Those Below
Most acclaimed
Those Below
The story begun in Those Above comes to a conclusion in this battle for the hearts and minds of the human race. For centuries beyond counting, humanity has served Those Above, god-like Eternals who rule from their cloud-capped mountain-city of unimagined beauty and unchecked viciousness. But all that is about to change. Bas Alyates, grizzled general of a thousand battles, has assembled a vast army to contend with the might of Those Above. Eudokia, Machiavellian matriarch and the power behind the Empty Throne, travels to the Roost, nominally to play peacemaker - but in fact to inspire the human population toward revolt. Deep in the dark byways of the mountain's foothills, the urchin Pyre leads a band of fanatical revolutionaries in acts of terrorism against their inhuman oppressors. Against them, Calla, handmaiden of Those Above, fights desperately to stave off the rising tide of violence which threatens to destroy her beloved city.
Low Town
Rigus is the greatest city in the Thirteen Lands, a glittering metropolis of crystalline citadels and sumptuous manors, where gentlewomen hide delicate smiles behind silken sleeves and bored nobles settle affairs of honor with cold steel. But light casts shadow, and in the darkness of the spires the baseborn struggle, eeking out an existence amidst the cast-offs of their betters. This is Low Town, a sprawling warren of side streets and back alleys, of boarded up windows and false storefronts. Here the corner boys do a steady trade to the dead eyed and despairing, and a life can be bought with a clipped copper penny. Low Town is an ugly place, and its champion is an ugly man. A former war hero and intelligence agent, now a crime lord addicted to cheap violence and expensive narcotics, the Warden spends his days hustling for customers and protecting his turf, until the chance discovery of a murdered child sets him on a collision course with the life he'd left behind. As bodies bloat in the canal and winter buries the city, he plays a desperate game of deception, pitting the underworld powers against his former colleagues in the secret police, hoping to find the source of the evil before it consumes him, and perhaps the city itself. But virtue is rarely repaid in kind, and Low Town is no place for the righteous. In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Quentin Tarantino comes LOW TOWN, a novel about the taint of blood, and the impossibility of redemption. LOW TOWN will be published in the US and Canada by Doubleday on August 16, 2011. The same book will be published simultaneously in the UK and Commonwealth by Hodder & Stoughton under a different title, THE STRAIGHT RAZOR CURE. Translations are also forthcoming in the following languages, with the respective publishers in parenthesis: German (Piper) French (Bragelonne) Spanish (Planeta/Ediciones Minotauro) Croatian (Znanje) Polish (Papierowy Ksiezyc) Italian (Fanucci Editore) Czech (Euromedia) Russian (Eksmo) More information available on the author's website: www.danielpolansky.com