The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Hardcover

Swanwick, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688131743 ISBN 13: 9780688131746

Publisher: AvoNova / William Morrow & Co, 1994

Synopsis

A slave in a dragon factory that manufactures flying fighting machines, Jane changes her destiny when a voice from a dragon promising freedom and revenge prompts her to escape and challenge the foundations of the world.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Swanwick is the author of a novella, two short story collections, and four critically acclaimed novels: Vacuum Flowers; the Nebula Award-winning Stations of the Tide; The Iron Dragon's Daughter, which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and nominated for a World Fantasy Award; and Jack Faust, also a New York Times Notable Book. Mr. Swanwick lives with his wife and son in Philadelphia, PA.

From Kirkus Reviews

Seething, brain-bursting, all but indescribable upper-world coming-of-age yarn, from the author of a string of splendid novels (Stations of the Tide; Griffin's Egg, etc.). A world where magic and technology both work exists at a much higher energy level than our own. Here dwell kobolds, imps, elves, demons, dwarves, and other fantastical beings--including Powers who poach souls from our world to use as slaves in the upper world. One such wretched waif, Jane Alderberry, is forced to toil in a vast, terrifying factory that manufactures stealth-attack dragons using both magical and technological components. One particularly evil dragon, pretending to be an inert wreck, desperately wants to escape the factory but cannot fly without a pilot. He arranges for Jane to discover him; but, before agreeing to help, Jane requires the dragon to reveal his true name and thus yield Jane a measure of power over him. Together, then, Jane and Melanchthon escape. Jane, beginning to grow up, attends a supernatural version of high school, then studies alchemy at college; her boyfriend, whom she can never quite bring herself to trust, is a serial incarnation, forever giving his life to save hers. Eventually, Jane comes to the attention of the Powers, and, following the Teind--a dreadful, goddess-inspired winnowing-out of the world's inhabitants--falls into despair, just as Melanchthon announces that he intends to assault the goddess's Spiral Castle, a puzzle-palace located in a set of yet higher dimensions. At once a gleefully bizarre parody and a dazzlingly imaginative tour de force, flawed by the rather distant, uninvolving narrative and an ending equivalent to ``then she fell out of bed and woke up.'' Withal: enormously impressive, rich, dense, demanding. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: AvoNova / William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0688131743
• ISBN 13: 9780688131746
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 424