Caitlin has worked hard to reach her station in Faerie. As the younger child of the powerful House Sans Merci, she will not inherit the title - that will go to her older brother. Her half-elven, half-mortal nature also counts against her - but does enable her to become pilot to an iron dragon, one of the destructive, living war machines of the realm.

Her father's life ends, her brother disappears, and she herself is framed for a crime. She must escape and seek to clear her name, moving through all the levels of the brutal world she lives in. Swanwick's Faerie is modeled on post-Soviet Russia, with an aristocracy of elves ruling over the dwarves, russalkas, centaurs, and other such fantastic beings. Caitlin's story is braided with that of Helen, a woman from our world who makes a leap to Faerie as she dies, and finds herself living in the younger woman's mind, as advisor and foil.

This third novel in the sequence that began with 1993's The Iron Dragon's Daughter completes the story well, but is perfectly readable without any need for familiarity with the earlier stories. If you are considering reading any one of these, however, I suggest Daughter. which felt revelatory when it was released, offering a possible new direction for US fantasy far removed from the European-folktale roots of most commercial writing of the time. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2019/10/review-of-iron-dragons-mother-by.html ( )