Customer Reviews

The Iron Dragon's Daughter

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Iron Dragon's Daughter, an amalgam of steampunk and fairy, will have you screaming, laughing, and crying all at the same time.

This is perfected madness, incredible storytelling.

Iron Dragon is one of the smartest books I've read in ages. The story follows a changeling, Jane, who is placed in a factory to work alongside other enslaved fairy children. Their task . . . to build weapons. The conditions are awful, the quality of life is awful, and the future is less than promising. That's until the Dragon, Number 7332, begins to tempt Jane with tales of the outside world. He offers her freedom, but the cost . . .

Honestly, I am going to have to read this novel again. Swanwick has a tendency to jump around, and it's not that it's poorly done, it's just sometimes difficult to follow. I'm sure I missed things, and the quality of this story is so great, that I want to make sure I catch every last detail.

Fans of fantasy, steampunk and fairy stories in general will adore this book. It's worth the investment. I borrowed the copy from a friend, and have since gone out and purchased my own. I don't want to share it!

Happy Reading!

Those who come to "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" expecting a straightforward fantasy story (or even a semi-straightforward steampunk story) are destined to be disappointed. It is a complex and open-ended book that places heavy demands on its readers. However, readers who struggle through the whole thing (and it wasn't a struggle at all for me -- I read the book in a few days, enjoying myself enormously after getting used to Swanwick's deliberate, meditative pace) will be rewarded by a book that is intricate, delicate, and possessing an optimism that completely belies its surface darkness.

Its plot is convoluted and fugal: the same set of themes is repeated three times, and then, in a coda which is _not_ the equivalent of "then she woke up", is repeated as a counterpoint for a fourth, final time. The characters are difficult and often unsympathetic: the changeling child Jane, who sits at the focus of the book, possesses such a weak moral compass (and suffers so much abuse) that by the end of the novel, even the most sympathetic of readers will have given up on her. Finally, the questions posed by the novel are not resolved in any straightforward way: much of the most interesting information in the book is buried in implication, and some things we just aren't meant to figure out.

The surface story is simple: Jane is a changeling girl, a drudge straight out of Dickens who labors endlessly in a large and grimy dragon factory. The dragons are one of the first of many delights in the novel, being sentient and ruthless stealth weapons used by the elven overlords of Jane's world in their endless battles for supremacy. They are, in short, total cyberpunk wish-fulfillment devices. Jane is contacted by an ancient, powerful, and cagey dragon, who outlines a way by which both he and she can escape the factory. His plan brings about the first of many compromises that Jane is pressured into within the book, and from there the book is about the tension between Jane and the dragon, as she reach! es towards maturity and her own flawed understanding of the world and her place within it.

This book can be read as a parable about growing up, an allegory of the tradeoffs necessary to get ahead as a woman in contemporary society (presented in the bleakest, most savage terms imaginable), or simply as a satire of genre fantasy and cyberpunk. I've always thought of Swanwick as being a slightly more accessible Gene Wolfe, and nowhere is that impulse towards virtuosity and subtle command of the English language more evident than in this book. This is one of those books that continues to grow, luminously, in my memory, and one of a very small collection of science fiction novels that I think everyone should read.

This ultimately is a sad book, in more ways than one. The (lost or stolen? it is never cleared up) human child Jane toils in the Steam-Dragon Plant, seeking escape and solace; she seems to find an ally in the disabled Moloch Dragon in the scrapyard, together planning to escape....and then the novel gets lost, or more properly never decides on a direction. Yes, it does defy stereotype, refusing to follow *expected* rules--just when I think I know what will happen to Jane next, something else twists the tale completely out of shape. This should be a good thing, only here it keeps disappointing. Jane seems to be the only human in a semi-magic world--she is not really discovered nor is her significance quite explained. Ideas are introduced, the enchanted toys Jane is supposed to play with, the addition of Decembers into a long, cold winter, the College of Magic, the Mechanical Horse who befriends Jane, yet they ultimately pan out, or never develop. The symbols of a needle and a dogs tail are seen frequently--but what did they mean? The great Moloch Dragon Jane steals to escape--this is one of the high points of Swanwicks novel, the exhileration....yet it only leads to another drab end, Jane seems to spend much time in an enchanted shopping mall and school, just another *ordinary* adolescent? I found Moloch himself less Evil than sullen, selfish--he bickers with Jane yet desires her aid. And in the end? The Dragon exhausts himself, reduced to a tiny fluttering thing...Jane *awakes* from possible autism...into what kind of world? The beginning bore almost a macabre beauty, the end was just another confused young woman--had anything been really answered? Though Swanwick avoids the cliches of fantasy, he also avoids any fulfillment of it either. Only for those who *chuckle at Kafka*.

As he showed so expertly in _Jack Faust,_ industrialism and medievalism are two sides of the same rusty coin. Jane is a mortal changeling, kidnapped by the powers of a very unpleasant version of Faerie to be a "breeder," producing half-elf pilots for the iron dragons. Until she's old enough for that, though, she's put to work in a dragon factory, working twelve hours a day and living a dreary, dangerous existence with other children, none of whom are human. But that's just the beginning of her life, which will take her through a sort-of high school and then to the university in The Gray City, and which will turn on her talents as a thief, her carefully nurtured cold-bloodedness, her discovery of sex, and especially on her relationship with a slightly insane rogue dragon. While it's common enough for female authors to create thoroughly believable male protagonists, the reverse, for some reason, is much less often the case. Swanwick, however, does a first-rate job with Jane and with the supporting cast that haunts her life. A bleak, disturbing, and mind-grabbing book you will reread periodically -- I guarantee it.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter is a book that stays with you, and it is definitely a book you have to read more than once to fully comprehend. The tale follows Jane, who is introduced to the readers as a forced child laborer in a steam-dragon plant. She is the sole human in an eclectic mix of feys, shifters, giants, dwarves, and other fantastic creatures. She (and all the other children there) dream of escaping, and she manages to achieve that dream with the help of what is thought to be the rusted out hulk of the dragon 7332, or Melancthon. With the dragon's help, Jane is disguised as a fey, and takes up a normal life in the woods 'somewhere else', going, as all young women do, to school. After she loses her virginity to a boy supposed to be a sacrifice, Melancthon abandons her, and leaves her to her fate in the University in the city. Things progress from there, and she eventually meets with the dragon again in a somewhat confusing and wholly surprising ending.

The first time I read this book, I was just 15 years old, and I didn't like it. I was a prude little know-nothing, and Swanwick's incorporation of foul language and sexual scenes made me feel, to use his phrasing, "unclean." I was embarrassed to be reading the book. However, I picked it up again a month away from 16, and (with a little more worldly knowledge this time) it made a lot more sense. This book has definitely moved from my "this-book-exists-but-nothing-more" shelf to my "favorites" shelf.

Swanwick writes in a style I've never seen before. He takes setting completely familiar to us modern day humans, such as shopping malls, squalid cities, and college, and infuses them with a type of grimy urban fantasy, the likes of which I've never read. Elves snort coke and faerie dust. Wood-mays get drunk. Gryphons fight each other in the air for cans of thrown beer. The familiarity of the settings and situations Jane finds herself in only lend to the overall alien feel of the story. The plot can be a little confusing and hard to follow at times, but this is a book that gets better each time you read it, so even if you don't understand the first time (I certainly didn't) it will become clearer with each time you read it. I highly recommend this!!!

Ussually, when I read the stories of fantasy style I find them very dynamic and easy to read. Their goal is to attract reader and to interest him by showing him a fast-changing world of space wars, love, discoveries, brave warriors, high technologies etc. When I saw the name of this book for the first time I thought that this is a typical fantastic story but I was wrong. Author of this book, Michael Swanwick, puts point on emotional part of Jane's relationship with strange world of magic and technology and with other creatures around her including Iron Dragon #7332. In several places I felt little bored, but in the end my patience was rewarded. Looking back, I really enjoyed this book. Here I met a lot of special words and new concetps, so to understand clearly all the things I had to read twice. The content of book, which after first look seems to be strange, is strictly logical even the end of story, when after Jane's death (after failing attempt to destroy a Spiral Castle) she returns to live on Earth with family by the will of the Goddess. So, if you're looking for the easy stories to spend your time i do NOT recommend this book to you. This story is sad and it will make you think a lot.

This book started great: an innocent little girl trying to survive in a cruel and egotistic world factory. I was getting interested in this fictional different world and in the weird characters: a tengu, strange rich elves, dragon machines, etc. but when the girl escaped from the factory the story got a little bit slower and uninteresting, and then in the college I lost total interest in the story. In fact, this was the first book in my whole life that I left unfinished to read (not even boring school novels have I left unfinished). Why? From the middle of the story forward, the story lost its objective. The scenes were irrelevant, like the sex scenes that appeared every ten pages or so for no purpose in the plot. Narration was boring. I just stopped seeing the point of the story.

The only reason I gave this book 2 stars was because the protagonist was presented as a human being with good qualities and flaws. If one isn't a sci-fi or fantasy reader and wants to start reading books from these genres, I suggest not to start with this book.

The elves in this book are nothing like Tolkein imagined. And neither is anything else. _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ tells the story of a human changeling imprisoned in a faery factory, eventually destined to be a breeder for the half-human pilots who ride the Iron Dragons. But Jane is not an easy target. She escapes from the factory with one of the most fearsome dragons and makes a pact with it that will shape the rest of her life.

Jane is a lot like a normal teenager in the book, something I notice irritated reviewers. She's self-obsessed, vain, and not very diligent at class. She doesn't exhibit special talent and isn't always terribly courageous. In other words, she's a person.

So much of fantasy depends on the formula of an ordinary person being dumped into a magical environment. But usually the magical environment is terribly one-dimensional and the 'ordinary person' turns out to be destined for some feat of greatness or another-- while they may be allowed a potentially fatal flaw, they usually don't have more than one. It was really refreshing to see Jane-- good at some things, and not at others. She's by turns sulky, stormy, and terribly smart. I liked her. She was real.

There are details in the book that are really brilliant at taking faery lore and turning it into a real society, with all the complication, churn and darkness. I'm thinking of a moment where the police yell at a milling crowd that their gathering is unseelie.

I honestly regretted it when I realized that I was getting towards the end of the book. Will definitely seek out other works by the same author.

I spent money and time on this novel that I will never get back. I like fantasy, I like to be challenged in my thinking, and I enjoy a good story. What started out being promising turned into just plain boring as the author tried to state some point, which I still do not get (I guess I am the odd person out in all of these reviews). Mountains of undirected imagery (some of which was quite descriptive, with occasionally entertaining sequences, hence the 2 star rating) and regular (quite descriptive) sexual events, and a lack of a clear storyline / plot / sequence of events left me grasping for meaning in this novel. I finished, hoping that the ending would somehow tie together the numerous threads that I had been trying to follow, but I was disappointed, and put down the book angry that I had spent my time on it. If you enjoyed S. Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses", you'll probably sail through this. It's not THAT difficult to follow, but this is definitely not for the mainstream market. Nor is it for anyone who wants enjoy a satisfying read with neat and tidy packages at the end.

I am not certain what to make of Michael Swanwick's magnum opus of teenage pseudo-feminine rage. It is most certainly a different kind of fantasy novel, filled with extremely unorthodox sexual behavior, sadistic violence toward children, and extraordinary amounts of fairly creative profanity. It possesses a deeply layered, confusing plot with a lot of gnostic-inspired ideas about the nature of reality tossed into it. It is also oddly compelling in a pornographic, car wreck, slasher film, can't-tear-your-eyes-away manner. I hated it, wanted to stop reading it, honestly couldn't stand it, and yet somehow couldn't put it down until I was finished. This book is like a scab you just have to pick off.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter could best be described as a C-grade Go Ask Alice meets Perdido Street Station with a dash of Jacob's Ladder thrown in for good measure: vulgar, shocking, demented, and emotionally draining. Oh, it also contains a LOT of fairy sex. No, I don't mean homosexuality.... I mean literally sex with elves, dwarves, trolls, and that sort of thing. If I was Michael Swanwick I probably wouldn't do any book signing's for a while because, frankly, I would be rather frightened of meeting one of my own fans in the flesh. Have you seen the film Misery, Michael? Anyone who is really, really into this book is like a hundred more scary than Kathy Bates.

Very odd, kind of icky, weirdly compelling, and definitely not suitable for your children unless you are deliberately attempting to raise serial killers.