The Iron Dragon's Daughter. Michael Swanwick

Imagine the world of Tolkien's hypothetical Middle-earth, lurking in parallel dimensions of a tangled multiverse. A world that developed in much the same way as ours, but in which magic, rituals and magical creatures remained, which now live in the huge metropolises we know. Somewhere, wars are going on, for which factories create mechanical dragons - powerful fighting machines, endowed with artificial intelligence, cold and insidious, based only on the thirst for destruction and chaos. Dragons need pilots - human half-bloods to function, only with them can the dragon rise into the air and use its entire destructive arsenal.

But what will happen when one such scrap metal dragon wants to take revenge for its meaningless existence on the very foundations of the world that gave birth to it? And what will happen when he finds a worthy pilot to implement his plan – a girl-changeling, whom no one asked, transferring to this bizarre world with its strange rules and unjust laws? Then the very foundations of the universe will be shaken, and reality will appear in all its true incredible essence, stunning, surprising, terrifying...

"Daughter of the Iron Dragon" is a top example of postmodern techno-fantasy, fairy punk, in which Michael Swanwick fully reveals his entire arsenal of unconventional views on traditional genres and turns our ideas about them upside down.