The book was bigger than I thought it was going to be which is not a bad thing haha. The Iron Giant is my all time favorite so I can't wait to read The Iron Woman.My 16 year old son, has always loved "The Iron Giant". He was very excited to get this book and see where it started. Thanks!One of the worst books I've ever read. Glad I got to it before my youngest child. Nightmarish, sexist, man-hating, and preachy. Addresses the problem of pollution by saying it's the literal evil inside of men, but not inside women, but there's nothing can be done about it, then magically creating clean energy. That's not a solution. We enjoyed The Iron Man but this is agenda driven nonsense....insanely good sequel that far surpasses The Iron Giant. Rare and worth seeking out! Ted Hughes at his sci-fi finest.i haven't read it yet but the package was nice and the book was shiny new what i wanted thanks a million.awesome book! as described. came fast.Was supposed to be a hardcover in very good condition. Was a softcover in a little less than ok shape with a torn page.Ted Hughes (1930- 1978) was poet laureate of England. Barry Moser is an American artist who grew up in Chattanooga and who has illustrated every book from the Bible to the Alice books to _The Wizard of Oz_ (where the Wicked Witch of the West was modeled on Nancy Reagan) to poetry books by Donald Hall. The main problem that I have with Moser's engravings is that there are never quite enough of them.On page 57 of _The Iron Woman_ (1993), we see Moser's portrait of the smug, self-satisfied factory manager, J. Wells. On page 87, we see a portrait of what has become of him. We are told:Mr. Wells the giant catfish was now in the swimming pool in his new home. His two little sons spent their time digging worms and dropping them in to see him sucking them off the blue tiles with his great blunt mouth. (86)There are some other characters who receive some wickedly funny just desserts as well. And yet, we come to realize, that "the whole thing had gotten out of hand" (88). And who is responsible for things getting out of hand? We can see her on Moser's cover to the book-- a female robot who rises out of an English marsh and disrupts the balance of nature:The black shape was the size of two or three elephants. It looked like a hippopotamus-headed, gigantic dinosaur, dragging itself on all fours up out of a prehistoric tar pit. But now, still like a dinosaur, it sat upright. And all at once it looked human-- immense, but human. Great hands clawed at the head, flinging away swatches of muddy reeds. Then amid gurglings and suckings and with a groaning wail, the thing stood erect. A truly colossal man-shaped statue of black mud, raking itself and groaning, towered over the lonely marsh. (13)The Iron Woman is discovered and cleaned by a young girl named Jean. The robot wastes little time expressing a philosophy of sorts:"DESTROY THE POISONERSTHE IGNORANT ONES...DESTROYTHE SPOILERSDESTROY"This she tries to do-- not always with happy results. Jean calls for Hogarth and the Iron Man in the hope that they can keep the Iron Woman under control. This they are able to do at last. But...It is a truism that nature is in a state of constant change. So is the world at the end of the novel. Is it change that our young friends will embrace? We do not know. We can only hope so.It's generally on-target. But it's horrifically brutal and quite frightening. My kids (7 and 9) were quite 'disturbed' by it. So much so that we had to stop reading it about 3/4 through.It's also showing its dated sexism with all the technical and management roles in the factory being held by men. Whilst the cleaners and canteen workers are all women. Oh, and all men are evil !I wouldn't recommend it to a modern / young audience.I liked the boldness of the ideas. I could not suspend disbelief as I did with The Iron Man. This book has aged with time, because liquid waste regulation is much tighter and better than when this book was written. Now, it is CO2 emission to atmosphere that is more problematic and needs dealing with. (David Ashby)Though used was in good condition. Purchased for my grandson, as we have read the Iron man, which was really good, so thought we would try the Iron woman. Very pleased with purchase and would recommend. As libraries are shut and we running out of books to read was happy to be able to buy a book at a reasonable price.I read this with my 7-year-old daughter after reading Iron Man and it was good but possibly not as good as Iron Man. I would still recommend it.A topical ecological read recommended by an 8 year old boy for my 7 year old granddaughter to read.