The Iron Dragon's Daughter

The good part of the Iron Dragon's Daughter is the totally un-selfconscious universe built around a changeling girl and the elven world that holds her captive. We spend a lot of the story filling in the details of this world, learning its rules, even as our heroine tries to find her way back to a home she does not remember. Escape is a constant battle, from the dragon factory, from a lower school, from relationships which do not benefit her.

The bad part of the Iron Dragon's daughter is that, after awhile, you feel like you're in a bar where you stick to the floor and the peanuts are stale. The imagery turns disgusting, the story full of horrible vignettes. Some of it makes little sense and the turns of the story do not follow; loose ends accumulate. If the set pieces were rich and fully-drawn the reader could enjoy each separately but this doesn't happen. The ick factor overrides the story and I won't be reading this again.