with bringing out some amazing moments. His panels are sharp and crisp. His ability to change his style is impressive and shows that he is an intriguing talent. His own story, Metroland, has a style that is reminiscent of Alan Moore’s classic From Hell but it tells a very different tale. It maintains the nine panel gird that Moore has become
synonymous with. Further his drawing style has a flavour of Eddie Campbell. Miller’s pencils subtly develop through the script. They start off as quite scratchy yet by the end of part one his lines are becoming more bold and predominant. His style continues to develop with a beautiful panel reminiscent of the work by Lowry. This book managed to make
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me want to read on, want to see what was going to happen next. Not many anthologies have this ability but this one managed to do it. I rarely enjoy an anthology as much as I enjoyed this one.
Rating:
Luke Halsall
BOOK REVIEW - Low Town: The Straight Razor Cure
er with a rich, bloody past and a way of inviting danger. You`d struggle to find someone with a soul as dark and troubled as his. But then a missing child, murdered and horribly mutilated, is discovered in an alley. And then another. With a mind as sharp as a blade and an old but powerful friend in the city, he`s the only man with a hope of finding the killer. If the killer doesn`t find him first.
Author: Daniel Polansky Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
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Devices such as magic and monsters are used far more to flavour their worlds than to be the point of them. There is still very much a sense of experimentation of course, pushing the boundaries to see how far they can go. What Polansky brings to the party with Low Town is a world that blends the character beats and sensibility of pulp detective fiction with the trappings of magic. The detective in question here is The Warden, and in the grand old tradition of the genre he is a Romantic masquerading as a Cynic. Battered by a long life of conflict, broken by bad decisions and worse company, he has become the lowest form of life – a drug dealer. Low town is his domain and he defends his patch fiercely. There is a great sense of routine here: a life lived, with webs of connections, pasts poured over, regrets drowned with drink and (briefly) obliterated with chemicals. It’s a world brooding on the past, perfect for the author’s noirish aspirations. The status quo is shaken when he stumbles across the body of a child on his daily rounds. It’s the start of a pattern of disappearances that shakes
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The Review:
I’ll say off the bat that I really enjoyed this book. It had an engaging protagonist (despite his ugly features and uglier job) a fine sense of gutter level life and, most importantly, it was Different. If you think you’ve grown tired of fantasy novels, this is the kind of book that will make you think again. The shackles of High Fantasy have been thrown off by many authors in the last decade, seeking a stronger sense of believability to the characters and worlds they create.
The Blurb:
Welcome to Low Town. Here, the criminal is king. The streets are filled with the screeching of fish hags, the cries of swindled merchants, the inviting murmurs of working girls. Here, people can disappear, and the lacklustre efforts of the guard ensure they are never found. Warden is an ex-soldier who has seen the worst men have to offer; now a narcotics deal-