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Daniel Polansky

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Born
Baltimore, The United States
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Member Since
August 2011

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Daniel Polansky is the author of the Low Town trilogy, Empty Throne duology, the Hugo-nominated novella The Builders, and A City Dreaming. He can be found in Los Angeles, mostly.

A City Dreaming Out Now

Friends! Would you believe it or not, I have a new book out. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... It's called A City Dreaming, and it's a ramble through an impossible New York, courtesy of a fast talking lush who prefers quiet beer bars to world saving. It's strange, it's funny, you could do a lot worse. Take a look! Read more of this blog post »
18 likes ·   •  4 comments  •  flag
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Published on October 04, 2016 21:59
Average rating: 3.87 · 23,421 ratings · 3,435 reviews · 29 distinct works • Similar authors
Low Town (Low Town, #1)

3.86 avg rating — 6,716 ratings — published 2011
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The Builders

3.75 avg rating — 4,402 ratings — published 2015 — 17 editions
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Tomorrow, the Killing (Low ...

4.07 avg rating — 2,730 ratings — published 2012 — 16 editions
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She Who Waits (Low Town, #3)

4.31 avg rating — 2,202 ratings — published 2013 — 10 editions
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Those Above (The Empty Thro...

3.67 avg rating — 1,740 ratings — published 2015
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A City Dreaming

3.79 avg rating — 1,250 ratings — published 2016 — 14 editions
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Those Below (The Empty Thro...

3.92 avg rating — 893 ratings — published 2016 — 10 editions
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The Seventh Perfection

3.64 avg rating — 875 ratings — published 2020 — 5 editions
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A Drink Before We Die

4.24 avg rating — 490 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions
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Tomorrow's Children

3.54 avg rating — 437 ratings — published 2024 — 3 editions
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More books by Daniel Polansky…
Low Town Tomorrow, the Killing She Who Waits
(3 books)
by
4.01 avg rating — 12,329 ratings

The Builders
(1 book)
by
3.74 avg rating — 4,446 ratings

Those Above Those Below
(2 books)
by
3.75 avg rating — 2,633 ratings

Daniel’s Recent Updates

Daniel Polansky has read
The White Bear by Henrik Pontoppidan
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Two novellas from a Nobel prize winner, albeit coming from that early era when the judges seemed mostly to be reading Scandinavian literature. The eponymous is a charming tale of an idiosyncratic ursine minister who returns to a staid, small town Dan ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
A Nest of Nightmares by Lisa Tuttle
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Short horrors. I particularly enjoyed the weirder and more 'literary' ones, that is to say, less explicitly genre. Tuttle has a good eye for the horrors of motherhood in particular—I enjoyed the one about the 'white woman' and the one about finding y ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
Poems and Antipoems by Nicanor Parra
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Poems by Chile's radical 20th century laureate. Some I liked and some felt like leftists diatribes without much aesthetic value. On the other hand...

What I say is, let's try to be happy, sucking on the miserable,
Let's extract from it the restorative
...more
Daniel Polansky has read
Waiting for the Fear by Oğuz Atay
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Turkish Underground Men detail their absurdist drama and existential suffering in compulsive steams of consciousness. As a rule, I can't say that this is my bag, but Atay does it exceptionally well. This is weird and funny and depressing and vital, a ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
A History of the Hussite Revolution by Howard Kaminsky
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What was it, exactly, that compelled me to read a 600 page academic history of the development of Hussite thought? Part of it is that I’ve long had an interest in the Wars of Religion, and this was a piece of that vast and sanguinary tableau I hadn’t ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
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In an alternate history where Byzantium expanded to the Atlantic (is it alternate history when magic exists, or is that just fantasy?) a rogues gallery tries to keep England free. Probably one of the better fantasy books (I'm going to go with that) I ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
To Bury Our Fathers by Sergio Ramírez
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A non-chronological, mythologized retelling of Nicaragua's bloody dictatorships. Fucking fabulous. Lurid, lyrical, bloody, fierce. Definitely a Bolano precursor, with lots of long monologues about tragic past misdeeds interrupted by really exact desc ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
Sakina's Kiss by Vivek Shanbhag
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A venal businessman considers his past crimes and current hypocrisies when his daughter goes briefly missing. Another of Shanbhag's introspective near noirs, incisively contemplating the yawning spiritual void at the heart of India's rising middle cl ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
The Witch by Marie NDiaye
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An unassuming woman and mediocre witch struggles with her brilliant, monstrous daughters and their equally horrifying grandmother, although really that suggests somewhat more plot than undergirds this existential nightmare of a novel. NDiaye is Dosto ...more
Daniel Polansky has read
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
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Chiang specializes in a form of science-fiction in which character and narrative are sublimated towards the vigorous consideration of a specific impossible qualification – what if the comsogenic conception of the ancient Israelites was true, what if ...more
More of Daniel's books…
Quotes by Daniel Polansky  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“It’s a dangerous thing, pretense. A man ought to know who he is, even if he isn’t proud to be it.”
― Daniel Polansky, Tomorrow, the Killing

“I remember the lightning in the air, and the lovers bidding goodbye to each other in the streets, and I can tell you what I think. We went to war because going to war is fun, because there's something in the human breast that trills at the thought, although perhaps not the reality, of murdering its fellows in vast numbers. Fighting a war ain't fun - fighting a war is pretty miserable. But starting a war? Hell, starting a war is better than a night floating on daeva's honey.”
― Daniel Polansky, Low Town
tags: war

“The dangerous men were still asleep, their blades sheathed next to their beds. The really dangerous men had been up for hours, and their quills and ledgers were getting hard use.”
― Daniel Polansky, Low Town

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Tracey the Lizard Queen Thanks for accepting! Very excited for Those Above!


Daniel Polansky Tabitha wrote: "Daniel wrote: "Tabitha wrote: "Flipping fantastic...I hope theres more in the works!"

There is more in the works...glad you liked it!"

Wonderful to hear! I'm getting my brother in law who is dep..."


That's all great news...thanks!


Daniel Polansky Tabitha wrote: "Flipping fantastic...I hope theres more in the works!"

There is more in the works...glad you liked it!


Daniel Polansky Tabitha wrote: "Daniel! I won - I won! I will be reading it as soon as it arrives. Glad you decided to join Goodreads! Now add more books mister so we can cyber stalk your shelves - that is what its all about!"

Ha - I'll do my best! Hope you like the book!


Daniel Polansky When did Nikola Tesla become the person that really stoned people want to ramble about at parties?


Daniel Polansky Shellie (Layers of Thought) wrote: "Welcome to Goodreads Daniel!!!"

Thanks! Happy to be here!


Shellie (Layers of Thought) Welcome to Goodreads Daniel!!!


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