Telepathic metal dragon with a rider that has cool art-based magic, and a ton of queer rep with a light enemies to lovers plot? Sign me the fuck up!

There is a lot of LGBT rep here. Non-binary, WLW, and poly. Its all very casual too. Don't expect gender or sex to be big themes though. The rep is just there, but its not a big part of the story, well except that romance I guess.

The magic system is really cool and while the author chose to not really explain it, you understand enough through context how it works. But I really do wish the author had gone more into depth, not just on the paint-magic but on the automatons as well. There was just so many interesting concepts that could have been explained but weren't. I don't think the book is less for it, I just think its something I would have liked to see.

And, the thing that really brought down the rating for me, the main character is a little too apolitical for my taste. They are pretty anti-violence, even though they are thrown into the middle of a revolution. I've seen this book compared to "Iron Widow" which i think is unfair, as the MC in that book definitely has a side that they are taking.

The concepts in this book are fun. Fun enough that I kept reading and finished the book. But the main character's blase attitude towards the resistance or the government really disappointed me. And the ending is just kind of weird. I really felt like this was going in the direction of "Babel" which really would have been awesome and would have had the character finally picking a side and growing. But it ended up being very middle of the road.

As a stand alone, this is a solid 3 stars. I really think it needs a sequel to really shine through.