[Yobmod]

Onto what I found to be the problem: direction. It didn't really seem that there was any. It seemed like a bunch of stuff happening at the factory, then a bunch of stuff happening at school, then a bunch of stuff happening at college, and on and on, without really having those things tied together by SOMETHING. I don't think you're right, at least for me, Brys, in that a quest would be needed to tie things together. I read plenty of books with no "quest," that have a lot of direction. When I'm reading I like to be able to extrapolate something of what is coming up on the horizon, even if that turns out to be wrong later on. The author can lead me in all sorts of wrong directions, but lead somewhere. As it was, it just seemed to meander a bit too much for my taste without any real direction.

This makes sense to me, and explains why its not even in my top 20 fantasy, in spite of the good parts. I don't think it would have taken much to add a direction to Jane's development, just the occasional attempt to find out about her origins or her native world.

[Luke_B]

Onto what I found to be the problem: direction. It didn't really seem that there was any. It seemed like a bunch of stuff happening at the factory, then a bunch of stuff happening at school, then a bunch of stuff happening at college, and on and on, without really having those things tied together by SOMETHING. I don't think you're right, at least for me, Brys, in that a quest would be needed to tie things together. I read plenty of books with no "quest," that have a lot of direction. When I'm reading I like to be able to extrapolate something of what is coming up on the horizon, even if that turns out to be wrong later on. The author can lead me in all sorts of wrong directions, but lead somewhere. As it was, it just seemed to meander a bit too much for my taste without any real direction.

Now, one could argue the literary point that Jane was directionless, and thus the book was. I don't buy that. She can be directionless and the author still give us some kind of direction. As it was, there was no hint of anything overarching the story, no real structure underneath. I'm definitely a stickler for structure unless an author really sells me on not needing it, and this book didn't sell me on that.

I agree that the desultory plot is a weakness of the book, but ee gads Erf, there's so much more going on here I don't see why you would spend almost an entire (lengthy) post complaining about it. I don't think you really explain why the "directionless-ness" of the plot bothers you so much. Personally, it didn't bother me so much as I saw the plot as fitting in with the nihilistic and anarchic overtones of the book. It's been a while since I read it, but I also loved the uncertaintly and defiance of the ending.

[Grey Sea]

The basis for sex providing power for magic wasn't a difficult concept, and less arbitary than most books. Its not especially original either, which is probably why i wasn't put out by it.

Jane's promiscuity was a direct result of her upbringing. An abused woman with low self esteem using sex to gain recognition and a small amount of power is quite an obvious message, and i didn't see anything dubious in it.

Umm, yeah, I got all that, and the High Elves, too. Just to obvious for me I guess. And the nihilistic and anarchic thing Luke mentions wasn't working for me either. Don't get me wrong with my observations, I found some good qualities that I enjoyed. Just never got off the ground for me, that's all.

[Erfael]

I agree that the desultory plot is a weakness of the book, but ee gads Erf, there's so much more going on here I don't see why you would spend almost an entire (lengthy) post complaining about it. I don't think you really explain why the "directionless-ness" of the plot bothers you so much. Personally, it didn't bother me so much as I saw the plot as fitting in with the nihilistic and anarchic overtones of the book. It's been a while since I read it, but I also loved the uncertaintly and defiance of the ending.


Yeah, I was afraid I might not have made myself clear there. It's not the directionless-ness of the plot that bothers me. I'm fine with a meandering plot and such. It felt to me like the writing iself could have used more direction. As I said, I'm a bit of a stickler for some kind of structure. I may have spent more time on the issue than was warranted, I'll grant you. It is taking up more space in my post than it does in my mind.

[Brys]

For me, very good structure is a bonus, not a necessity. But Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun certainly had a kind of structure to it which fit very well - and in a similar way, I think this has a structure. In some ways, The Iron Dragon's Daughter feels like a very honest fantasy novel - one that isn't going to impose an artificial plot where there is none, it is a biography of a fictional character, in essence, and not a particularly nice character. That's how I see the novel, and that's a good enough structure for me. The plot is very meandering, but that's part of the structure, and I think the most important events are detailed while the filler is left out generally. The central part is character development (strange that I like it so much, because I usually favour worldbuilding + plot over character development) so many of the meandering parts could not be left out. It isn't perfect (or close to perfect), as I think it would have benefited by having more spent on the time in the factories, more on the dragon but less on her school career etc, but not significantly less.

[Eventine]

Just about out of time to post for the moment, so I'll give a brief overview of my reading experience. I probably read this book in 3 or 4 sessions, and reallly enjoyed it up until around the last quarter where I literally sat back and went WTF?

One question regarding the sex magic: She couldn't get her experiments to work at first, but resolved this problem using the sdex magic. Was this because she was supposed to be using the sex magic and din't know, or it was an effective form of cheating?

More comments + comments on everyone else's comments to follow...

[Yobmod]

I think the sex magic was a form of cheating - it was an easy source of power and had obvious downsides, but Jane couldn't seem to learn how to tap other power sources. Maybe she was meant to use it for one experiment, but after that her classes expected the students to use other techniques.

[Erfael]

I think the sex magic was a form of cheating - it was an easy source of power and had obvious downsides, but Jane couldn't seem to learn how to tap other power sources. Maybe she was meant to use it for one experiment, but after that her classes expected the students to use other techniques.

It's a few books back now, so maybe I'm forgetting, but what was the "non-cheating" method? Did they ever make that clear? It was my impression from her friend that everybody knew that the "cheating way" was the way to get it done.....

[Yobmod]

I just checked, and where Jane learns of sex magic, she's also told that such power can be obtained by mental discipline, anger, fear, pain etc, but that sex is the easiest.

The friend that tells her may use it (although some sort of iffy possesion seems to take place when she's talking), but other students (Monkey and the scarecrow one) didn't seem to know much about it - they kept askng her what she was doing. And the blokes she slept with didn't seem to expect her to be doing it either.

I think she was supposed to use mental discipline. She mentions that scying the future would take months of staring at a bowl of ink (which is presumably how the other student do it), whereas she used fresh semen. I don't think even college boys have enough to provide themselves and the girls for everyone's experiments :D

[Eventine]

Hi Brys, just wondering if you could elaborate on the term anti-fantasy? And how it applies to this novel?