The Iron Dragon's Daughter

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

Some people don't like to admit that they didn't “get” a book, but I'm secure enough with myself to say that I didn't get this one.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter started off well. Jane is a human changeling who works in a Faerie factory that makes flying iron dragons for weapons. Jane and the other child slave laborers (who are a mix of strange creatures) are entertaining and bring to mind Lord of the Flies and that scene in Sid's room from Pixar's Toy Story. Michael Swanwick's writing style is fluid and faultless. There are flashes of Valente-esque creativity: a timeclock with a temper, a meryon (whatever that is) civilization similar to that in A Bug's Life, a conniving jar-bound homunculus, gryphons who dive for thrown beer cans. I truly enjoyed these parts of the book and understand why Mr. Swanwick has won so many prestigious awards.

But, after Jane escapes from the dragon factory, the whole thing plummets like a lead dragon and it never returns to its former glory. The writing style is still lovely, but the plot is ??? I don't think I've ever used this word in a review before ??? awful. I hated it.

Jane was never a sympathetic heroine, but after her escape she turns into a remorseless foul-mouthed thief, drug-user, slut, and murderer. I didn't like her or any of her acquaintances. The plot had no order, the world had no rules, everything that happened seemed random, chaotic, and senseless.

Knowing that other people have praised this novel and that it's sequel (The Dragons of Babel) was nominated for a Locus award, I pressed on. About two-thirds of the way through, I figured out that there was a method to the madness, but the chaotic nihilism was so disturbing that even though I realized it contributed to the entire philosophy of the novel, I still hated it. I think perhaps if I'd dropped some acid, the plot would have arranged itself better in my mind, but alas, I had none to hand.

I think Michael Swanwick is a great writer, but The Iron Dragon's Daughter was weird, disjointed, obtuse, and inaccessibly bizarre.
Originally published at FanLit.

Michael Swanwick is a very angry man.

This is one of my favorite reads of the year. The conceit is simple: Swanwick is angry at the state of fantasy in 1994. In 1994, Swanwick's world is going to shit. Why, he asks, do we write about noble elves and chaste princesses and chivalrous knights, and especially, why do we kid ourselves that some child of humble origins will enter this world, aspire to great things, and climb the rungs of society?

Swanwick asks what would happen if a fantasy world worked exactly like ours.

Enter Jane Alderberry. We find out her story eventually, but figuratively, she's an orphan working in a factory, then she cons a mechanical dragon (from the factory) into helping her escape. From there, she lives as Appalachian trailer trash with a single-parent dad (the dragon), then a student at a state school in an unnamed city. She's a changeling who was stolen from Earth, ordinarily bred with faeries to create dragon pilots until her womb gives out. These fairies are varied, but the grotesquerie of the world is prominent. Instead of Arwen and Aragorn and Boromir, we have Ratsnickle and Monkey and Blugg, and Swanwick takes every opportunity he can to tell you how disgusting this world is and how much it makes a truly horrible person out of our protagonist.

I don't like grimdark fantasy, but this world, despite its immense cynicism, was so colorful and detailed. I couldn't help but think that JK Rowling must have read this book at some point. The sheer sliminess, weirdness, and again that word, grotesque aspects of the world just remind me so much of the genius of the Wizarding World that Rowling would create three years later.

As Jane matures and falls more into the decadence of society, we get a lot of sex, both on screen and off screen, and drug trips. I viewed these less as self-indulgent and more as Swanwick's continual digging into the underbelly of this society, which fetishizes and dehumanizes Jane as she grows older and more mature. I think some people have read this as a societal critique, but it read very much to me as a critique of the fantasy genre and, secondarily, of academia. Swanwick's view on society on this book is very clearly that it exists, and that people in certain circles ignore it.

This book is extremely well written, tight, and had a satisfying ending. Avoid if you're prudish, but it's historically fascinating, reads very modern, and you'll never read anything like this again. 9/10.