Mystical Angels

What is the title of this book and who is the author?

When I was younger (I grew up in the 90s) I read this children's book at a boy who puts a puzzle together with his father. It leads to him discovering how his mother died. She was a dragon slayer or something like that. Before he completed the puzzle he is somehow transported to a world of dragons and other mystical creatures. The book title has been racking my brain. I think dragon is somewhere in it. It's not Iron Dragon's Daugter because the protagonist was a boy. It was a children's novel and was published at least before 1996. I know it was part of a summer book club that Scholastic did.

Public Comments

1. Iron Dragon, I believe is the title. I don't recall the author. Decently written book as I recall. Yes Chloe - Swanwick. Swanwick is a vastly underrated writer. His science fiction books are really quite remarkable. I didn't associate him with the Iron Dragon's Daughter because I'm much more familiar with his science fiction.
2. If I remember correctly,it was called,"The Iron Dragon"Does that help?TL
3. It is called the The Iron Dragon's Daughter. The Iron Dragon's Daughter is a 1993 novel by writer Michael Swanwick that combines fantasy and science fiction. The dark and nihilistic tale follows Jane, a changeling girl who slaves at a dragon factory, building part-magical, part-cybernetic monsters that are used as jet fighters; until she crosses paths with an old, rusted dragon named Melanchthon and escapes. The novel is particularly noteworthy for reinventing (as well as subverting) popular fantasy tropes and archetypes, such as elves and dragons, for which critic John Clute labeled the book an "anti-fantasy." Swanwick admits having written it both as a homage to J.R.R. Tolkien and in reaction to a handful of writers he claims exploit Tolkien's milieu and the readers' imaginations with derivative, commercial fantasy: [...] The recent slew of interchangeable Fantasy trilogies has hit me in much the same way that discovering that the woods I used to play in as a child have been cut down to make way for shoddy housing developments did. [1] The dragon Melanchthon is named after German theologian Philipp Melanchthon, an associate of Martin Luther. Further references to Lutheranism can be found in Swanwick's novel Jack Faust. Swanwick has written another book in the same setting, entitled "The Dragons of Babel". Excerpts from it have periodically been published as short stories. They include King Dragon, The Word that Sings the Scythe, An Episode of Moondust, A Small Room in Koboldtown and Lord Weary's Empire. Most of these were originally published in Asimov's.
4. ?
5. Yeah...Swanwick's "The Iron Dragon's Daughter" must be it. Nothing else comes to my mind. The public library has all their info available via their computers now. I'd go there and look it up. If you have difficulty finding it with the info you have, the librarian can help you. After all, that is what they are there for!!! Hope you find the one you are looking for.