The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Rating:
Summary: metaphorical fantasy
Review: The Iron Dragon's Daughter is not a straightforward fantasy, but a metaphorical tale about a girl named Jane and the dark and powerful relationship she has with her own "dragons". We watch her growth, as she moves from the black prison of her childhood to confused and rebellious adolescence, and into a more conscious young adulthood. But is she forever doomed to repeat the same destructive patterns?

I found this book to be quite sloppily written, and bogged down with many unneccessary [if colorful] happenings. Very ambitious, and may be confusing to some. Fans of Charles DeLint and Pamela Dean, et al. should find something here to enjoy. If you liked Jeffrey Ford's "The Physiognomy" or Lynch's "Mulholland Drive", you also may want to check this out. Not recommended to very young readers, due to adult subject matter: drugs, sexuality, etc. [Just because something is labelled "fantasy", it doesn't necessarily mean it's for children -- a quite Victorian notion if I ever heard one.]

Rating:
Summary: dark and twisted, a gothic exorcise for the mind
Review: I've read this book more than 20 times since before I was 10, and will probably go back and read it a few thousand more times until the book crumbles to dust. It's an amazing book.
The story follows the life of a girl named Jane Alderberry as she fights to escape the life of a child laborer and eventually succeeds with the help of a self serving mechanical dragon who is mainly using her to his own end. You get to watch as she struggles with high-school and college and the typical fight for friendship, financial aid and general survival in a not so typical world of faeries, elves and other such mythical (or are they?) creatures. It's no buttery tale of boy-bands and cheerleaders, but rather a more compelling story, culminating in an ultimate attempt at making a meaning of her life and seeking revenge in one breath. There's drug use, living sacrifice to the Goddess, and a soul mate who keeps dying and coming back in a new incarnation mixed with final exams, shop lifting and straitforward sex talk served up in such a way that it's all believable in the context of the story. Majick, technology and alchemy intertwine flow through the story at all turns and seem natural to all the characters involved. This story is not a light reader. The plot is very involved and dark, as well as more often not very pretty. No harsh realities are sugar-coated. Rather, a harsher side of life is spotlighted. It's almost trying to explain that no matter how civilized a world can be, how modern a life a person may try to live, the third world countries we pity are everywhere around us. They're in our own back yards and within us as well. It will leave you thinking for hours during and afterword. It's also one you'll want to read more than once.

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Summary: Pixie dust and guided missiles!
Review: This is a crazy romp through nearly-uncharted waters - although if you're a fan of Mark Shepherd's "Elvendude," you'll be familiar with the rather nutty concept of mixing a Judy Blume-style Young Adult plot with a bunch of Little People.
To Swanwick's credit, his hip young fairies, dwarves, elves, trolls, and whatnot (there's dozens of species) are believable, even when they're snorting pixie dust in the back seat of a limo and listening to modern elven rock. But this isn't their story - it's the story of a young changeling, a human girl-child taken from her cradle to work in a cramped, Dickensian factory.
Well, except that this factory makes sentient, highly evil missile-launching 'iron dragons' - fighter planes, in a magickal way. The novel really begins when one of these enters our heroine's life, and plans out a glorious escape - or a blackmailed kidnapping, depending on your point of view. Then , we follow her struggles to find her own identity and discover her past - the various plot twists will leave you shaking your head in stunned amusement, except for the ending, which simply cries out for a sequel.
If you're not turned off yet, I highly recommend picking this inventive and offbeat novel up for a read. You won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Excuse me
Review: Excuse me ! Sadly I am required to give it a star because if it were up to me it would have none.But to the point. I have almost lost trust in the library system. Aren't they supposed to screen books for its readers? My sister borrowed it and started to read it. She stopped after a few pages , not even finishing the first chapter because of the language. Then my father looked through it and found an area with explicit descriptions of things a 13 year old ,or anyone for that matter, should be reading about! I don't recommend this book to any person.

Rating:
Summary: Faery like you've never seen it before.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Much To Recommend Here...
Review: But 250 pages into the book I put it down and went on to something else. As other reviewers have indicated, this is a complex, often difficult and demanding read that after a while lost my interest primarily because of the peripatetic plotline in which I felt the narrative becoming too subsumed by the tangled and at times seemingly disconnected conceptual elements of the novel. While others have seemed to find this approach to narrative construction laudable, and while it would appear that the author ties up his multiple thought strands at conclusion, I found the book's manner of presentation created an imbalance in the story elements, too many episodic subplots and abstract references existing separately and parenthetically to provide a solid narrative foundation upon which to build a satisfying story. My mind was occupied, but not my engagement. While I suppose this could be chalked up to simply a matter of taste, I would argue that fictionally ideas require an edifice of story equal in depth and narrative power to its mental constructs. After a time this tale seemed far too mentally top heavy, with the necessary fictional foundation---the overall story---collapsing beneath the mental weight. As some have implied this to be the rewards of a literary intention rarely found in fantasy fiction, I would suggest that other authors with similar goals and expression---M. John Harrison, China Mieville, Mervyn Peake, Jonathan Carroll or even Patricia McKillip---have been far more successful, providing both an engaging story as well as intellectual explorations that do not evolve into preponderant abstraction.

That said, the author certainly provides ample imaginative episodes and description, building an intriguing otherworld that parodies our own, a chilling blend of the magical and mechanistic in which the story draws and often perverts a potpourri of folklore and fairie, full of satirical moments, sometimes grim, sometimes humorous, and social criticism. These elements, often delightfully rendered, for a time carried me along in the story, though ultimately proved not enough individually to support the lack of sustained narrative flow. As others have commented, this is an exploration of coming of age perceived through a lens of alternate reality that provides a very different focus on the struggle to achieve identity and individual freedom through a variant yet relevant revelation. Unfortunately, the manner in which this is achieved, as an earlier reviewer mentions, keeps one at an emotional distance from the main character. Once again, the mind is engaged, but not the heart or spirit.

I suspect, as can be seen from previous praise---this novel was listed as a "notable book" by the New York Times upon publication---that many will find this work stimulating, and there is little question that it offers abstract and intellectual pleasures, replete with mental games and conundrums such as the Spiral Castle and science presented as alchemy. But I also suspect that the audience will ultimately prove to be limited, as this is a novel not about story but about the presentation of ideas loosely and tangentially wrapped in the guise of narrative fiction.

Rating:
Summary: A promising beginning...and a quick descent into garbage.
Review: During the first hundred pages or so of this book, I was excited by this work. The story of an ordinary young girl enslaved to a factory that is reminiscent, although distinct from, Star Trek's "The Borg," who, by means of extraordinary courage, acquires freedom from said factory with the help of a sentient fighter plane called a "dragon." Furthermore, this book was science fiction AND fantasy in one, what more could I ask for? Well, how about a protagonist I can sympathize with for starters? I very much sympathized with the girl in the factory and her trials and tribulations. But what happened to her afterwords? She flakes on her studies, steals, cheats, lies, and is apathetic to herself and her friends. How about a plot that makes sense? The book wanders through several themes, like the sacrifice that reminded me of _The Dragonslayer_ ... then explores the hedonism of the upper classes (much of this section was apparently written for shock value,) I recall vaguely some manequin guy who reminded me of a sorry version of Tolkien's Black Riders, or perhaps one of Robert Jordan's myrdraal,... and the book also makes a short stint into a "identity is an illusion" theme but quickly abandons it. These are a few of the many, many unrelated themes that the book will briefly explore and quickly abandon. How about an ending that's not a complete and utter non sequitur, from either the action or the themes of the novel? I won't spoil the ending, if such an ending that comes from literally out of nowhere can be "spoiled," but the ending confirms that the protagonist, (I call her that since she is unworthy of being called "heroine") has made a final and irredeemable descent into nihilism, the final refuge of people who just can't get it together. And as for the VERY end...the last couple of pages...well...that doesn't really follow from the conclusion either. Maybe this book deserves another read-through from me, but probably not in the near future, because reading this book was a chore, and I was drawn on only by the hope that she would rise from the ashes of her nihilism like a great phoenix and DO SOMETHING ADMIRABLE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Heh. So much for that.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely rare -- Mechanistic Fantasy
Review: This book is hard SciFi masquerading as fantasy... or fantasy which is able to entertain a hardcore SciFi fan. In fact it's an extremely rare genre: mechanistic fantasy. Some people hate fantasy -- the prissy morality, the girlish elves, the dirty little hobbits... even those people will love this book.

A twisted coming-of-age story, this book is a long, immersive, difficult but gratifying read. It evokes the poetic prose of Swanwick's "Stations of the Tide" but is much more detailed. I believe it's also the first book to introduce the idea of sexuality/libido as the primary magical catalyst.

Rating:
Summary: Not an easy read
Review: "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" is an excellent novel rich in symbolism. It is not, however, an easy book to read. It is so richly textured, the reader is frequently left wondering what to accept at face value, and what to give further regard to. In this instance, such a style works. Because, ultimately "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" is a coming of age novel, a novel about personal freedom. Thus the complexity of the work mirrors the complexity we all face as we struggle to grow as human beings in a world of uncertain motives.

This is an excellent novel; well-plotted and exciting. I must reiterate, however, that it is not for everyone. If you are looking for a light SF read, pass on this work.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Book
Review: This book is truly a masterful piece of literature. Having read many fantasy and sci-fi novels (including Tolken and Asimov), I would have to say that this book is one of the best. It is definitely the best fantasy novel I have ever read. Unlike many traditional fantasy novels (go to the dungeon to get an artifact, kill some orcs, etc.), this book is off the wall. It speaks of a world where the Elves are the aristocracy and where the wars are fought with huge metal beasts. It speaks of a world where the fantasy and science fiction are blended into one. It speaks of a world where anything is possible. If I could I would give this book 10 stars. If you want to read a truly enjoyable and bizarre book - this is it. I guaranty that you will not be sorry.