She Who Waits by Daniel Polansky

My review of the final Lowtown novel is likely to be the shortest review I've ever written for a novel I enjoyed so thoroughly. But delving too deep into this story would risk spoilers, so I'm forced into brevity.  I loved the preceding two volumes of the Lowtown trilogy and was both excited and saddened to know that my time with the one of the most irredeemable and yet most compelling protagonists I've ever encountered was coming to a close. Polansky has been labelled as a 'writer's writer' by folks with far more education and experience than I, but I would go one step further and say that these novels are perfectly suited to any reasonably well read person who isn't likely to be put off by a novel that takes a long, unflinching flinching look at the darkest parts of society and human nature. These books aren't easy to read, they are violent and profane with hardly a decent person in sight, but they are so compellingly well written and so deft in their observations about the cold facts of human nature that it's a definite shame they haven't found a wider audience.

Review of the Week: Tomorrow the Killing by Daniel Polansky

The sophomore slump is a common term in the music world. Often an artist rushes a second album in an attempt to cash in on the success of a well-received debut. The rushed work is rarely as strong as its predecessor. Writers aren't immune to this phenomenon, though the longer production time usually prevents it from being as common. One need only look at reviews to the sequels of highly acclaimed debuts of such standout titles as Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind to prove my point. Daniel Polansky's debut, Low Town, left me hungry for more of his genre bending setting, his complex and troubled narrator Warden, and most of all for the gritty beauty of his prose. So when I received my review copy of Tomorrow the Killing, I will admit to feeling a mix of excitement and trepidation. What if Low Town was a fluke, a perfect storm of engaging premise and startling choice of protagonist? Now that the newness of the premise and characters has worn off, will this newest installment fall short of the high expectations of Polansky's debut?

Tomorrow the Killing answered all of my fears with a resounding no. Polansky more than avoids the sophomore slump, delivering a sequel that builds upon the strengths of its predecessor but delivers even an even more complex and engaging plot, more compelling character study, and a surprising amount of compelling back story about the protagonist, Warden, all delivered in Polansky's sparse yet elegant prose.

Set three years after the conclusion of Low Town, Tomorrow the Killing retains most of the elements of the previous story. Warden is still a low level crime lord and drug peddler with a penchant for sampling his own wares far more than is healthy. He still owns a half share of the Staggering Earl, with the even tempered war hero Adolphus, and still serves as a mentor of sorts to the former street urchin, Wren. When General Edwin Montgomery's daughter disappears into the slums of Low Town on a mission to find those responsible for the decade old murder of her brother, Roland., he knows there is only one person who can find and return his wayward child before she suffers the same fate as her brother. Having served with both the General and his son during his time as a soldier, Warden finds himself drawn into a confrontation between   powerful forces despite his numerous attempts to disengage from both the dangerous storm that is brewing in Rigus and his own inconvenient conscience.

Polanksy alternates between the present day story line of Warden's investigation into the whereabouts of General Montgomery's daughter and flashbacks to his time as soldier, fighting the Dren miles from his homeland. We learn more about the infancy of his friendship with Adolphus, and his relationship to the General's murdered son Roland, who was one of Warden's commanding officers. While the fleshing out of our protagonist's backstory is certainly more than welcome, it is absolutely not a matter of Polansky adding filler material. Warden's history informs the present day as it becomes apparent that the Veteran's Association, that Roland Montgomery championed before his untimely and mysterious death, is mobilizing its members to protest a tax on their hard earned benefits and may hold the key to the fate of missing Montgomery girl. Complicating matters is Adolphus' growing involvement with the leadership of the Veteran's Association who have asked him to take part in their protests against the crown. Even Wren is drawn into their web through his growing admiration of his adoptive father, complicating Warden's attempts to keep his growing magical abilities under control and far from the grasping hands of the Empire.

These flashback chapters are some of the best in the novel. Polansky paints a harrowing picture of war, with not an ounce of nostalgia or glorification. Incompetence, illness, and long hours spent cold in the rain and mud before the crash of arms are the order of the day. Warden is never painted as a hero, not in his own mind any way, and he even goes out of his way to avoid recognition for a moment of supposed heroism. This is in direct contrast with the self-aggrandizement and rose-colored memories of the Veteran's Association and Adolphus. This unflinching approach to one of the genres most utilized topics reminds me of nothing so much as Clint Eastwoods's masterful final word on the American western, Unforgiven. Lovers of Joe Abercrombie's or Glen Cook's novels should definitely give this book a look.

Various criminal elements as well as members of Warden's former employer, Black House, also make appearances. True to form, Warden shrewdly plays the various factions against each other, making him a target if his manipulations are discovered. The political machinations at work in the plot also give Tomorrow The Killing a much larger sense of scope as Warden is dealing not just with the problems of the his own neighborhood but those of the Empire. The stakes are higher, the enemies more numerous, and in some cases all but faceless. Warden is in over his head, and struggles against forces that tax his considerable intelligence and cunning to levels even he cannot imagine.

Polansky seems to be taking steps to make Warden a somewhat more sympathetic protagonist this time around. While his gallows humor and propensity for violence and cruel sarcasm are very much intact, his drug use, while still present, is far less prevalent. A growing focus on his personal relationships particularly with Adolphus, also paint him in a more favorable light than the more introspective narrative of Low Town. While Warden may not view himself as redeemable, feeling the weight of his past sins and current situation are too vast for any hope at redemption, the readers may catch glimpses of the inherent goodness of his character that he drowns with drugs, violence, and risk taking.

As in Low Town, Warden often misjudges his enemies capabilities and suffers for his arrogance, adding high stakes and even higher tension to the latter half of the novel. The reversal at the end of the novel is far better than the one at the end of Lowtown. While there are plenty of reasons for readers to suspect things are not as they seem, Polansky manages not to telegraph his intentions, resulting in a far more satisfying ending.

Polansky's writing is top notch, as expected. The pacing is tight, keeping the reader engaged despite the frequent detours into the past. In fact, the flashbacks provide readers a chance to catch their breath and always furthers the plot in some way. The prose remains packed with the weary wit and bitter sarcasm that makes Warden such a memorable protagonist. Underneath is a stark beauty hinting that some part of our narrator has managed to stay untouched by his life of savagery and disappointment. I have small hope that Warden may eventually find peace if not happiness at the end of the Low Town tales, but my hopes for Polansky's future in the genre are anything but small.

Review of the Week: Low Town by Daniel Polansky

I owe Myke Cole a drink, should I ever get the chance to meet him. It'll be a high dollar one too, no PBR for Mr. Cole. Not because I am a gushing fanboy (though that probably has some truth to it) but because of a tweet that led me to Daniel Polansky's fantastic debut novel, Low Town. When I saw Cole's assertion that he would buy Polansky's grocery lists, should he ever decide to publish them, I was intrigued. A quick glance at the synopsis, and I was set to go.

Describing Low Town in simple terms is more difficult than most fantasy novels. Imagine that Quentin Tarantino, possessed by the ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien, did an eight-ball of cocaine and wrote a novel to be read by the late Johnny Cash. Low Town is something like that, only better. I've heard it called noir fantasy. I suppose if you have to put a label on it that one will do. I just call it a trope-breaking tour-de-force with the elegant savagery of a rusted switchblade. But you can take your pick.   

The book's back copy does an excellent job of setting the stage, so I'll leave it to the professionals this time. 

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, eking 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.

Sounds pretty awesome, right? Like other standouts in the sub-genre of fantasy with less than heroic protagonists, such as The Lies of Locke Lamora and Among Thieves, Low Town limits the setting to a narrow, but well realized area. The squalor and grit of Low Town is a tangible presence and Polanski milks it in every description, making the setting the most omnipresent character in the novel. Readers can almost feel the dirt collecting under their fingernails as they read and smell arcane sounding narcotics like dreamvine seem to linger in the air.

Polansky chooses an ugly man to tell an equally ugly story of drugs, foul sorcery, and murder. Warden's first person narrative is moody, tense, and unflinchingly honest. Readers may not like the drug addicted crime lord much, but Polansky makes sure they'll understand the path he's trod to become so broken. There is a filthy sort of poetry to Warden's voice as he riffs on the slum of his birth, his time spent in the military and as member of the feared intelligence agency, Black House. Warden is a broken addict with few real friends who sees no hope for redemption. He has no purpose other than to carve out a life of crime in between vials of pixie's breath and smoking dreamvine, until he is pulled into investigating a string murdered children that endangers not only his life but his callous and unfeeling existence.

Readers hoping for a story of redemption and real change in the character will find themselves disappointed though. Polanky seems to understand that, like in real life, addiction and recovery aren't easy and Warden's story arc, while showing glimmers of redemption and subtle character growth, reflect that reality. While it is easy to pull for Warden to get to the bottom of the mystery of the slaughtered children, hoping for Warden to return to the life he led before his addiction derailed his life is much harder. Nonetheless, Warden is a sympathetic and likeable narrator, largely because Polansky shows his admirable qualities through his interactions with the denizens of LowTown. Each character gets their moment to shine, either in action or by impacting our narrator in some significant way. A moment where the usually mild tempered and motherly Adeline gives Warden the sharp end of her tongue and the flat of her hand is a definite standout.

Of particular interests are Warden's interactions with Wren, a street urchin who is pulled into the former intelligence agent's wake through a chance encounter. The adolescent serves as a reflection of Warden's childhood living on the streets, more street tough and petty thief than precocious child. Though our protagonist takes great pains to appear to be more than comfortable letting Wren fend for himself, there is a glimmer of parental instinct and protectiveness that may be the fragile core of Warden's possible redemption. Rounding out the cast of Warden's extended and only family are Adolphos and his wife, Adeline, who tend the inn that Warden calls his home, and the patron sorcerer of Low Town, The Blue Crane and his apprentice, Celia, who figure heavily in Warden's childhood years. The Crane and Celia get more face time than their more common counterparts, but Polansky does an admirable job making all of these secondary characters have agendas and personalities that never seem created simply to toss the irascible Warden against.

The antagonists fair just as well. The heretic Ling Chi, with his insistence on courtly manners and maddening indirect way of speaking, was a standout, even if he is only marginally important to the main plotline. Lord Beaconfield, the principle antagonist, is gleefully unafraid of Warden's brutal reputation and is his equal not only in intelligence but in his taste for violence. Even conversations between the two read like a well orchestrated fight scene, with parries and ripostes that ring like invisible blades. We get to see Warden's former boss, the head of Black House. While he serves as a driving force for Warden's investigation and growing sense of peril, Polansky seems poised to use him to greater effect as the series continues.

The plot is fast paced with as many blind turns and reversals as the landscape of Low Town itself. The chases and battles are swift and packed with tension. Warden is a man who kills without rage, wrapped in a merciless practicality that life in Low Town demands. Polansky manages to inject enough of Warden's backstory to further flesh out his protagonist without slowing the plot in any noticeable way, leaving the reader without any excuse to stop reading. Polansky concludes with a twist ending that I suspected, though the telegraphing was fairly slight. That said, it was set up brilliantly and looses no points from me. In fact, it seems to be the only fitting end, as much as I wanted something else.

But for me the biggest selling point is Polansky's prose itself. Warden's narration is as dense a first person narration as I've ever seen. Every line of dialogue, exposition, and description seems to serve multiple masters; informing, suggesting, and adding to the mood of the novel. This tightness and attention to utility coupled with the obvious love for language gives Low Town a distinctive voice that, when blended with the weary cynicism of Warden's voice, marks Polansky as an author that genre fans would do well to watch. I've not been this excited about a new voice of fantasy since Patrick Rothfuss. Let's hope that the next Low Town novel, Tomorrow the Killing fares better than The Wise Man's Fear.