rdfs:comment
| - The Iron Dragon's Daughter is a novel by Michael Swanwick, published in 1994. The main character is Jane, a human girl who's a child slave in a factory that produces parts for Iron Dragons - that world's equivalent to fighter jets. One day, during a failed escape attempt, she finds a discarded grimore, which turns out to be a operational manual to an Iron Dragon. This leads her to to discover an old, broken down dragon who's Not Quite Dead. Melanchthon, Dragon #7332, offers to help her escape if she helps him restore his basic functions.
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abstract
| - The Iron Dragon's Daughter is a novel by Michael Swanwick, published in 1994. The main character is Jane, a human girl who's a child slave in a factory that produces parts for Iron Dragons - that world's equivalent to fighter jets. One day, during a failed escape attempt, she finds a discarded grimore, which turns out to be a operational manual to an Iron Dragon. This leads her to to discover an old, broken down dragon who's Not Quite Dead. Melanchthon, Dragon #7332, offers to help her escape if she helps him restore his basic functions. The story follows Jane as she tries to carve out some sort of life for herself in a world where humans are near-powerless rarities, first with the help of Melanchton, then without him when he abandons her, then with him again when he decides it's time to carry out his master plan: The destruction of Spiral Castle, and with it, the entire fantasy world. Iron Dragon's Daughter is, at it's heart, a deconstruction of the Plucky Heroine archetype, as Jane is nothing special (as a human, she has no innate magic, nor any of the physical attribute of other species) and stays that way, even as she's drawn into Melanchthon's web of madness.
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