Michael Swanwick is a really good author, but I haven’t read anything by him for a long time. When I heard that a sort of sequel to Iron Dragon’s Daughter (a book I remember liking very much) was coming out, I decided that I just have to read it. The Dragon’s of Babel is every bit as good as expected. This is a story of magical, mechanical dragons, and of a “postindustrialized Faerie” with all sorts of mythological creatures. It has texture, smells, colour. I’m not going to say much more about it, just present a quote to give you a feeling of it. An old lady explaining to a child:

Silver is the witch-metal. It takes spells more readily than gold does, and holds it better. It conducts electricity almost as well as gold, and since it has a higher melting point, it’s far superior for use in electronic circuitry. Also it’s cheaper.

Now I really feel that I need to find other books by the same author that I haven’t read yet. You can find The Dragon’s of Babel at the Kingston public library (at least after I return it!).