• The Dragon Factory

  • The Joe Ledger Novels, Book 2
  • By: Jonathan Maberry
  • Narrated by: Ray Porter
  • Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (8,807 ratings)

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The Dragon Factory  By  cover art

The Dragon Factory

By: Jonathan Maberry
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Publisher's summary

Ex-Baltimore cop turned special-ops shooter Joe Ledger is back in action.

In The Dragon Factory, Ledger and his team from the Department of Military Sciences square off against two separate groups of corrupt scientists. The beautiful but twisted Jakoby Twins are creating transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenaries for sale to the highest bidder. Their father, who takes evil to an entirely new level, is using cutting-edge science to complete the Nazi master-race program.

Joe must elude the NSA who are gunning for him, fight his way past rogue Spetsnaz teams, and stop these madmen before the Extinction Clock runs out. And when the bloodbath claims one of his own, Joe Ledger declares total war on those people who would burn down the world in order to reshape it in their own dark image.

Take another thrill ride with Joe Ledger.
©2010 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“In Stoker-winner Maberry’s wild second Joe Ledger novel, Joe and his comrades from the Department of Military Science take on enough villains and their world-threatening plots to fill half a dozen ordinary thrillers.” ( Publishers Weekly)

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What listeners say about The Dragon Factory

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Without the lectures, it's a decent action novel

It starts off as a straight up butt-kicking action novel, with a tiny hint of political back-story to give it some suspense. This continues nicely for about half the novel, then there is an 'intermission' where we get a very long lecture on how horrible eugunenics are. First one character, then the next, then the next, weigh in on the misery behind eugenics or genetic cleansing, or nazism...

Don't get me wrong, these are all bad things, but i don't want a 20 minute lecture in the middle of an action novel about the horrible-ness of it all. If I wanted to read a treatise on ethnic cleansing, I'd go pick up a book on that subject, not one that I thought was a quick and easy butt-kicking action novel.

Even the romantic component is lame...actually, it's so pathetic, I'm not going to bother talking about it. Fortunately, it can be safely overlooked as it's just a quick plug in (heheh, no pun intended) here and there in the story. I suppose it was there to give more depth, but... anyway...

If one could overlook the moralizing and lecturing (which I don't think you can because there is a LOT of it from midway onward), it would be more like 3.5 star. I just can't get all the blah-blah-blah out of my head, and the whole premise is a little too fantastical for my tastes... either it's a thriller, or it's a fantasy. But don't go putting dragons in my butt-kickings. And, no, I don't have a problem with superhero-like butt-kickers, I just don't want the story overstepping its own reality.

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36 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Men Are All The Same, Show Them A Little Clevage &

They Lose All Sense.

Another Five Star Novel, with a Five Star Performance by Ray Porter.

I will be the first to admit that this not as good as Patient Zero the first book in this series and even though you could read this book without reading that book, I believe you would be happier to read PZ first. PZ introduces you to Joe Ledger and to the Department of Military Sciences (X-Files on steroids). Some have given this less the five stars, the trap they have fallen into is that they are comparing Maberry to Maberry. That's like giving your second favorite book in the world three or four stars, cause it ain't as good as your favorite. Meaning only one book you have ever read could earn five stars. This book is still better then most of what is out there.

This is a Mad Scientist Novel (Mevil), no Zombies, but lots of genetic monsters.

Pro: Like a Koontz novel this filled with all kinds of creatures and bad guys. Here is a sample of what you will come across; Centaurs, Scorpion Dogs, Elves, The Chamber of Myths, Quetzalcoatl, Chinese Dragons, European Dragons, Sea Serpents, Gargoyles, The Hive, anti-aging gene, White Angel, mudpeople, transgenic soldiers, albino twins, life unworthy of life, extinction clock, Tigerhounds, clones, Neanderthals, New Men, unicorns, faith gene, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. The bad guys are cliche, Nazi's, Albinos and Russians, but in a book like this sometimes cliche is good. I lived for almost a year as a kid in Germany and went on vacation there almost two years ago and I love the German people, but you have to admit they make great bad guys. You may say that is politically incorrect, but you know you agree.

Con: I got sick and tired of the Extinction Clock. Every one of the 133 chapters starts with the Extinction Clock Countdown. It seemed to me that they kind of Wussied Ledger a little. He falls in love in this, he gets touchy feelie in parts, he less of a smart a@@ and he thinks before acting, something he didn't do in book 1. There are a couple of points where the book gets real patriotic in a patronizing way. There are a couple of duller then usual parts and the book seems a little unnecessarily stretched out. The epilogue is kind of stupid. Keep in mind we are comparing Ledger to Ledger, which sets the bar pretty high.

Ray Porter is great. I did notice in this book that Ray sounds an awful lot like Tom Hanks. I like Tom Hanks, so that is not a problem with me, it just seemed weird.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Worth a credit, but not as good as the first

I have to disagree with most of the reviewers here. This was a fun novel, and I'm glad I bought it. But it was disappointing compared to the first novel. The "bad guy" characters were all rather trite. There were also a number of elements in the plot (and plot connections) that were blatantly obvious, yet the supposedly brilliant people and the supercomputer at the Department of Military Sciences had a hard time figuring out. If it's that obvious to a reader, it kills the suspension of disbelief when it's presented as a startling revelation to the characters.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

And now for the kitchen sink....

When I began listening to The Dragon Factory, I was put off by what seemed to be very run of the mill super agent fare. The operative who survives and lays waste the opposition because of his superhuman skills and unfailing luck makes for tiresome reading fairly quickly. Then, to my surprise, the plot thickened into an interesting political/techno stew which, along with the absolutely superb narration by Ray Porter (a 14 carat asset for any book he reads), recaptured my attention and provided several hours of pleasurable listening.

Unfortunately, the mandatory final onslaught devolved into a completely ridiculous and absurdly extended series of combat set pieces between the indomitable Ledger and a seemingly endless queue of grotesque genetic monstrosities all of which are dispatched in remarkably unimaginative ways. In the end, the landscape is decorated with vast numbers of the vanquished. Meanwhile the sins of the evil geniuses at the center of the threat multiply with the body count until Maberry has managed to compile a truly ridiculous laundry list of twisted eugenic permutations, genetic transmogrification and historical monstrosity. It is hard to pay attention to the mayhem while you are guffawing.

Less would definitely have been more in this case, Mr. Maberry.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Extinction coutndown

Joe Ledger is the supernatural Jack Bauer. The Dragon Factory even has a countdown clock. So, I wasn't totally sold on book one, but it was good enough for me to give book two a spin and I'm glad that I did. How can AIDS, Nazis, clones, unicorns, and a potential ethnic cleansing on a massive scale all be tied together? The answer: apparently seamlessly if you are Jonathan Maberry. I will fully admit that I went into this with heavy skepticism. I'm still not ready to call this "horror" per se, but it is certainly a thriller. You owe it to yourself to give it a spin.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Fantastical and Fun

The second book in what is (at the time of this writing) a three book series was a strong follow-up to it's predecessor, Patient Zero. Joe Ledger, now a bit more settled in with his new job, finds new battles to fight and new threats to the continuation of the human race.

This whole series is worth listening to just to hear Ray Porter's performance, possibly the best I've ever heard. I'll be on the lookout for any new books he does and would have no hesitation basing a selection solely on the merits that Ray Porter had narrated.

My only problem with The Dragon Factory was the "flavor" of villain. Jonathan Maberry has brought Nazi's into present day, and as you can imagine, the dialogue of these villains is ugly, offensive, and off-putting. While I fully recognize the fact that if these characters had been less hateful they wouldn't have been the level of villain the story was working towards, I can't pretend that there weren't times that I wished we could fast forward through some of the hate speech. I could have done without it, and feel I still would have been able to understand that these were the "bad guys". I'm sure there's an argument to be made in the other direction, but it's not one I choose to make at this time.

Overall, I definitely recommend this book for a good thriller, performed by a really top rate narrator.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good but not Great

Any additional comments?

Let me start by saying that Ray Porter is great. I think he kept me interested more than the storyline. The concept was solid but there did not seem to be a lot of depth. There were a couple of points in the story where the author was rambling and it did not have any useful information. There were other points in the story where he had a chance to do more character developement and did not. I did not find the twins to be all that interesting and were very shallow. If you enjoyed the first book in the series ( Patient Zero ) you will be a bit dissappointed with this one. The action was run of the mill type of stuff, you don't really get to know Joe Ledger or any of his team any better than in the first book. I enjoy books that are part of a series because you get to see the characters grow throughout the books. This book left me wanting more twists and turns, more action, and more character developement. Not sure if I will continue with the series.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderfully and Wildly Entertaining

Really bad bad guys, mad scientists, mosters, evil plots to take over the world, hidden underground lairs, a secret government agency, none-stop action, and the baddest good guy ever - Joe Ledger. This is a great book.
To top it off Ray Porter's narration is world class, some of the best I've ever heard.
I'm becoming a big fan of Jonathan Maberry and Ray Porter.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

I should have stopped after the zombies...

More of the same. Normally this would have been a good thing as Patient Zero was a good ride. However, this book ranged from preachy to perverse. I am sorry, but you have to pick only one of those. I honestly stopped caring towards the end of the story. I figured if humanity got wiped out at least there would be no book 3.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

GOOD AND BAD

Echo team is back in business
This time we do not encounter anything so trivial as zombie making viruses.
This time we are getting something serious.

Despite all the drawbacks this book is as good as the first one
But for my own personal reasons it left me strange aftertaste.

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6 people found this helpful