Going Down to Lucky Town

By Douglas Smith

Multi-award winning author.

"Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he's also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think."
—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids and FlashForward

"A great storyteller with a gifted and individual voice."
—Charles de Lint

"One of Canada's most original writers of speculative fiction."
—Library Journal

DESCRIPTION:
Charlie the Pearl—con man, gambler, and ever absent father—is about to catch the dream that he’s chased his entire life—the secret of good luck. But it’s a secret that could cost Charlie the only thing in the world that he loves more than a winning streak—his daughter.

REVIEWS:
"There are echoes of Ellison again, and of Ray Bradbury, in this understated and deeply moving tale of a con artist who stumbles across an opportunity to right some of the wrongs of his past. ...a deceptively simple narrative of luck, loss, betrayal, and redemption. [The father / daughter interaction] is handled with honesty and a real understanding of the complexity of a relationship between two individuals"
—The Fix

"...packs a powerful emotional punch."
—Dead Reckonings magazine

"Another great story, but I'm getting used to that [from Smith]. Deft handling of character and setting (gambling, cons, and the game of life)..."
—SF Crowsnest Book Reviews

"...a bittersweet story about a con man with the talent to detect luck. [...] The plot is wound up and then discharged with nicely inevitable narrative logic."
—Locus

"Smith takes a simple idea and finds potential that many other writers would have overlooked in favour of some easier option. At the story’s heart is the relationship between father and daughter, and the things they do to make this work, rendered with a singular care and tenderness, the appreciation that sometimes we muck up without meaning to and that sacrifices are required."
—Black Static Magazine

"The coup-de-grace of this triumvirate of wondrousness [Impossibilia]."
—Mass Movement Magazine

"This is very much a con story and the author succeeds in accomplishing his goals at the same time injecting it with speculative elements. The set-up was handled judiciously and the ending delivered on the goods."
—Bibilophile Stalker, Speculative Fiction Reviews

"An enjoyable tale filled with broken and repaired familial ties bound together by a father’s love for his daughter."
—Hellnotes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Doug is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, with over a million words of fiction sold and over a hundred short story sales to professional markets in thirty countries and two dozen languages.

He has published three short story collections: Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, Canada, 2010), Impossibilia, (PS Publishing, UK, 2008), and just recently, La Danse des Esprits (Dreampress, France, 2011).

Doug has twice won Canada's Aurora Award for speculative fiction, and have been a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's Bookies Award, and the juried Sunburst Award.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Smith
• Release date: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458166777

Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.