Series
The Iron Dragon's Daughter
Michael Swanwick · 3 novels · 1993–2019
The Iron Dragon's Daughter follows Jane, a human changeling enslaved in a factory that builds part-mechanical, part-magical dragons used as war machines, in a Faerie that runs on industrial-age technology as much as spellcraft. Michael Swanwick wrote it as a deliberately recursive, spiral narrative rather than a straight line, and returned to the same colliding fantasy-industrial world, though not the same plot, in The Dragons of Babel and The Iron Dragon's Mother. The three books share a setting and sensibility more than a continuing story.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
Reading order
The order the books came out.
Best read in the order they were published.
Map
The Iron Dragon's Daughter at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 1990s1
- 2000s1
- 2010s1
Shape
Mood
Grim and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book3 of 3 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- The Iron Dragon's Motherdarkest · calmest
- The Dragons of Babelbrightest
- The Iron Dragon's Daughtermost intense