The Dragon Factory (Joe Ledger Book 2)

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They are celebrating their greatest achievement yet: Paris Jakoby, and his sister Hecate, god-like specimens of beauty and genius geneticists in their own right are pushing their own agenda: While Joe was visiting Helen and escaping the NSA, the rest of echo team is approaching a man hiding out in a rundown hotel. It was a routine pick-up turned bad as their newest addition, Big Bob Farraday, got half his body shot up by Russians with automatics; Bunny and Top take them out. Church contacts them and fills them in in a hurry, they must leave and move fast to avoid the NSA and rendezvous with Captain Ledger in Denver for backup.

Church also contacts Linden Brierly, and uses a Presidential Alert protocol to make him wake up the president from his surgical recovery as soon as possible and put an end to the Vise Presidents coupe. He reaches out to the President's wife, who has tremendous respect for Joe Ledger since he saved her life at the Liberty Bell zombie outbreak. She agrees to help them out. On the flight to Deep Iron, Joe video-conferences with Dr. Hu and Church and is shown a video from the unknown email of a hunting party tracking and shooting a real-life unicorn, very poor audio but the video was clear.

Hu and his team verify its legitimacy. The video was sent by an anonymous person in an old email account held by Church. Church recognizes one man from the video, Gunnar Heckel, who should not be alive. Heckel was involved in a group called the Cabal. The Cabal was an evil group active during the later years of the Cold War, bent on ethnic cleansing and was behind racial conflicts over last half of the 20th century. A younger Church, apart of a group known as The List, systematically took apart the Cabal and everything they had created.

Seeing Heckel in the video, they think someone has re-formed the Cabal and is picking up where they left off. Upon landing on an airfield near Deep Iron, echo team meets up with Brick Anderson. Brick is a DMS soldier with an artificial leg driving a Mr. Softee truck which is also a rolling arsenal. He drives echo team to Deep Iron and guards the entrance while they make they way down to the lowest parts of the facility, wishing for back-up, but with the NSA hounding down all of their agents none can be provided.

Moving to their destination, where Jigsaw team was headed looking for Gunner Heckels data storage, Echo encounters blood, lots of it. There are Deep Iron staff and Russian special forces torn to pieces; some still alive to put up a fight.

Finally reaching their destination, they are ambushed by two huge berserkers: Overpowering Top and Bunny, Joe is fighting quick and smart, with his rapid release knife and going for the head and face, its only vulnerable parts. The berserkers run off injured, but they got what they come for; although echo has a lot more of Heckels data they can comb through to find answers.

Spencer uncovers many documents and also the remains of Jigsaw team, who has been killed. The papers are revealed to be medical data and horrible experiments: The President wakes up, very pissed off, reams out the VP for his actions, and the DMS is able to get its backup and resources they desperately need. The twins lost their tie to the VP, they have been manipulating events to try and acquire MindReader from Church and the DMS to further the progress of their own research.

Back at the warehouse Joe, Grace, Hu, and Bug go over all the new data and recent events. Friends of Church from The List have been killed over the last few months. When they first killed off the Cabal, Church acquired Pangea, a software package they used to steal research around the world without a trace.

Church later upgraded and added functionality, it is now known as MindReader. He and Aunt Sally are the last surviving members of the List. But are at a loss as to what may be going on. The team is interrupted by another email, sent by a kid, who sent the previous email with the unicorn video. The kid is using video chat this time to get his message across, he is trying to reach Church and get his help to stop the bad men. He explains the horrible plans that are about to commence and the location of the bioweapons factory called The Hive. Echo team rolls out to his location, to make contact and retrieve him and any information he has.

The kid helps them in, but they hit heavy resilience against guards and modified creatures called Tiger Hounds: The Dragon Factory Joe Ledger, 2 4. One side is creating exotic transgenic monsters and genetically enhanced mercenary armies; the other is using 21st century technology to continue the Nazi Master Race program begun by Josef Mengele.

Hardback Editions

Both sides want to see the DMS destroyed, and they've drawn first blood. Neither side is prepared for Joe Ledger as he leads Echo Team to war under a black flag. Paperback , pages. Published March 2nd by St. Martin's Griffin first published January 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

To ask other readers questions about The Dragon Factory , please sign up. Lists with This Book. May 03, Sarah rated it really liked it Shelves: The villains were many and a little more complex so that made it difficult. It started very strong and mysterious. As Church and Ledger are wont to do, they follow the cookie crumbs back to the source and a much larger plot unfolds.

There were some very fun things going on here. No Zombies this go around, but several other mythical creatures pop their heads up actually it was a lot of fun, just a different vibe. I did miss some of the camaraderie between Joe and his team. All in all, a quick fun read. Nov 07, Scott Sigler rated it it was amazing. The second book in the Joe Ledger series.

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Three parts science, two parts gore, five parts testosterone, all mixed with gasoline and nitro and moonshine and poured into a flask made of dynamite. This is serious summer blockbuster stuff, folks. Good, but nothing great. It's entertaining quick fun read, but the plot was all over the place, very scattered, which made the book difficult to enjoy properly. Without a doubt the most interesting character was Ledger himself and the most fun I was having was following his POV supposedly the main storyline , but even when the series itself is named "Joe Ledger", our hero's appearances were too few and far between among all the hundred other parallel POVs of various villains and flashbacks and Good, but nothing great.

Without a doubt the most interesting character was Ledger himself and the most fun I was having was following his POV supposedly the main storyline , but even when the series itself is named "Joe Ledger", our hero's appearances were too few and far between among all the hundred other parallel POVs of various villains and flashbacks and subplots etc etc. Have to say, jumping through countless characters and plotlines in every short chapters was too distracting and annoying.

Also, its just my personal opinion, but Maberry really needs a better editor to throwout all the unnecessary flashbacks and subplots All these made the book unnecessarily bloated it could've easily been atleast pages shorter and the pace sluggish instead of lightning fast which it should've. Yet, the book is not without it's merits, the 2nd half is waaay better than the 1st half of the story and with much faster pace. The action sequences were vivid and breathlessly suspenseful, and finally gave proper legroom to our favorite Echo Team for some truly spectacular missions.

Not to mention the character of Joe Ledger is outstanding with all the great inner monologs and perfect characterization for our damaged brooding hero. Church, Top and Bunny. Seriously I love these guys, specially the various types of relationships they're having with Ledger. But alas, more than half of the book was wasted on the villains and their motivations and their inner relationships, and most of all, their sheer evilness How evil they truly were blah blah blah.

I totally didn't care for them, because quite frankly they were not at all interesting characters with any kind of depths, and the neo-Nazism, dreaming of master race, hating on "mud people" all these things are just cliched and been-there-done-that a thousand times before.

Sure, Nazis can be great villains, but they can be quickly turn into boring when getting almost equal spacing with our heroes for painstakingly detailed characterizations, motivations and background. Plus, the transgenic genetic manipulation plot line was nothing new, I read much better executed techno thrillers with similar genetic manipulation plots from James Rollins which were frankly, more entertaining and way more detailed in their scientific descriptions. All in all, the book is a quick fun read. I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars because, even after all the problems, one thing is true: Maberry's writing remains topnotch, and you just can't help but have to keep reading pages after hundreds of pages!

View all 8 comments. The triumph is only as big as the villain. Jul 05, Jason rated it really liked it Shelves: This is my type of summer read. Book number 2 in the Joe Ledger series, this one is quite different from the first Patient Zero in that there are no zombies and there is new cast cast of baddies. Like other Maberry novels this is an ACTION novel first, the horror, science fiction, and thriller elements all come in to add color and flair to 4.

Like other Maberry novels this is an ACTION novel first, the horror, science fiction, and thriller elements all come in to add color and flair to them. Joe Ledger is a former police officer, one bad ass SOB, and the leader of the Echo Team that was created in the first book. He is quite likable, short fused, and a master at hand to hand combat. If you have never read any of Jonathan Maberry books before, he is a master at choreographing the action scenes into juicy snippets of words that will have you hungry for more in a hurry. There are some very humorous scenes in this one that really balance out the weight of this doomsday scenario.

I've got enough baggage to start a luggage store, and I have a whole bunch of buttons that I don't like pushed. Couple this with some dreams of the "Perfect Race", through cloning, killing, and genocide, and buckle up for an action packed thrill ride. Without any spoilers, Maberry fills in every details of the how and the why behind the Extinction Wave, providing us with some interesting choices of world building.

He gives us a full backstory that to some may come off as a bit cliche, but I felt that he was trying to go "Old School". And "Old School" he does with spades. This is an evil, massively daibloical plan that makes most of our historical tragedies seem small in comparison. I found this to be so over the top, that it came across a bit funny to me. But, put it all together, the old school bad guys, the cutting edge genetics, and our cool ass protagonist As I have said before Jonathan Maberry really knows how to put action into words.

There is a scene between Ledger and Carteret that will leave you slap cringing as you read it and slap laughing out loud while at the same time slap leaving you breathless as you try to take it all in Nazi's, Russian's, clones, daddy issues, grumpy old men, greed, asshole politicians, genetic freaks, world domination and cool as ice Joe. This is what Dragon Factory is all about If you want to read a modern day spin on Jack Ryan or , and like your good guy's to be tough and dirty, than be sure to start with Patient Zero and follow it up with this one.

As you can already tell I am a huge fan of Jonathan Maberry and think that you should be too View all 4 comments. Honestly, this was a bit of a letdown from Patient Zero. It had plenty of action and suspense, and plot and characters. It just didn't have the bullets-flying kick assery of the first book. Still, pretty good stuff. Some of the villains were stereotypically dastardly, but others were good. It was jarring for his story to be first person, and then about half the rest of the chapters were third.

I was rather impressed with the way the final shakedown came about. Nice heartstring play there, Mr. Oh yes, at least a half-star must go to Ray Porter for his reading. His character voices were excellent. Jonathan Maberry is a wonderful tale spinner and his character Joe Legend is a definite stand out in the mass pool of save the day, action heroes. In this second addition to the series, crazy genetic scientists create a wild twisted story that is frightening and weirdly believable. Fast moving and intriguing with a small side of romance. A few of the main and favorite characters return but the end leaves us wondering who will be returning in the next book.

Highly reccomend to those who like inte Jonathan Maberry is a wonderful tale spinner and his character Joe Legend is a definite stand out in the mass pool of save the day, action heroes. Highly reccomend to those who like interesting and exciting mental and physical combat. View all 5 comments. Aug 03, Lou rated it liked it Shelves: Joe Ledger and the DMS on another mission. This time it involves a neo-Nazi, eugenics, pathogen,twins and genetics. As the clock counts down to a deadly weapon being released the team is on the search for the source. The story is well researched with many military specifics.

I preferred Patient Zero the first Ledger book, when it comes to stories involving combat and espionage I tend to struggle in keeping interest. This is not a short read and just found myself wanting it to Joe Ledger and the DMS on another mission. This is not a short read and just found myself wanting it to end if it was shorter I might have liked it even more. Only two books in and the Joe Ledger series has become a fast favorite of mine. Maberry effortlessly entwines a wide range of genres - military thriller, horror, science fiction, comic book action - to create an incredibly entertaining and compulsively listenable story.

In The Dragon Factory the extinction clock is ticking, counting down to global genocide. Cyrus Jakoby is a brilliant geneticist, his research building off the horrific medical tests conducted by Nazi scientists in World War II, an Only two books in and the Joe Ledger series has become a fast favorite of mine.

Cyrus Jakoby is a brilliant geneticist, his research building off the horrific medical tests conducted by Nazi scientists in World War II, and he has perfected the ultimate means to deliver the Final Solution and offer the white race complete domination over the Earth. It's up to Captain Joe Ledger and Echo Team to stop them, but time is running out and the Department of Military Sciences are caught off guard, stuck playing catch-up after inter-agency politics prompts the NSA to curtail their investigations.

There's a lot going on in The Dragon Factory and Maberry is an expert wrangler, maintaining almost complete control of the story's various plot threads and its multitude of characters. There's enough 24 and James Bond-style shenanigans and to keep listeners thoroughly engaged. The Jakoby family themselves are practically plucked right out of a Bond flick, with the incestuous albino assassin twins of Paris and Hecate conducting their own secret science experiments on a secluded island research base.

Not every story thread gets wrapped up sufficiently but hey, more fodder for book 3! Published in , The Dragon Factory feels less outlandish today than it may have at the start of this decade, as some of its more seemingly implausible aspects have been fulfilled in reality in only a handful of years. Take, for instance, the subject of white supremacists manipulating and controlling the White House and various government agencies, plotting to destroy the world by poisoning Earth's waters.

Certainly this seemed more far-fetched in , but here we are in with a band of white supremacists in the Oval Office, passing bills allowing our waters to be poisoned by mining waste and appointing the enemies of various government agencies to lead those very same agencies, like the EPA, and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, and placing immigrant children in concentration camps, and on and on and on. Sadly, the idea of virulently evil racists plotting to destroy the world from within America and through a network of highly-placed and influential government agents isn't quite the extraordinarily imaginative work of fiction it used to be.

Besides the white supremacist bad guys, Maberry injects a metric ton of cutting edge science and plausible-enough horrors stemming from transgenic experimentation to create superhuman animal hybrids to give Ledger and company a savagely violent run for their money.

Jonathan Maberry

Using the concept of scientific terrorism to fuel a series also gives Maberry a hell of a lot of elasticity in redefining the shape and scope of various horror genre staples. In Patient Zero , Maberry wrote about a militarized unit's response to the zombie plague. Here, we get rogue government operators, assassins, and a bevy of massive, berserker monsters, alongside a spate of other genre concepts.

It's clear Maberry is having a ton of fun writing this stuff, and his enthusiasm is infectious. The Dragon Factory is awful lot of fun to listen to, and Ray Porter delivers another knock-out reading as he firmly settles into these characters and brings them to life and in more than a few instances death as well.

He manages to make each of the characters distinct, utilizing tonal ranges, inflections, and accents to differentiate Maberry's large cast, always making it clear which character is speaking at any given moment. His is a pitch perfect narration, hitting the highs of each action scene and the softer lows of emotional reflection and devastation. Porter further solidifies the simple fact that he is the definitive voice of the Joe Ledger series, and I can't imagine listeners wanting it any other way.

The Dragon Factory

Patient Zero instantly hooked me, roping me into the thick of things and making me a Joe Ledger devotee. The Dragon Factory shows that this series most certainly has legs, and that it can run for miles. While the action is fast and fluid, this is a series that is more than just muscular brawn - it has a hell of a lot of smarts, too, both on and off the page. Apr 03, Merryish rated it did not like it Recommends it for: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. He was fun for the first book, but his perfection is getting a bit wearing. More to the point, the storytelling is even more simplistic than the first outing - all the good guys are Good with a capital "G", and all the bad guys are mustache-twirlingly Evil with a capital "E".

The more I read, the more my problem with the writing becomes the utter lack of any shades of grey; even torture be Second book of the Joe Ledger series, and regretfully, I find I've reached my lifetime limit of Joe Ledger. The more I read, the more my problem with the writing becomes the utter lack of any shades of grey; even torture becomes Good in the ones and zeroes of the story's moral binary, if it's done by a Good guy for Good reasons. Really not my politics, and also really not engaging to read.

There's no challenge in these books, no thought required, just a kind of endless slog through action scenes and one-liners to the predictable ending. In the first, it was Evil Scientists using viruses to turn people into zombies, while the good guys tried to stop them using guns and clever quips. In the second, it's Evil Scientists trying to kill all non-white people via genetics. In each, Good is equated with fighting and muscle and one-liners, while Evil is equated with research, experimentation, and scientific progress.

And if that's not enough for you - the end of this one involved the fridging of the series' lone sympathetic female character. She was tough and in charge and great at her job, and then she was the lead's lover, and now she is dead to further his manpain. Likewise, the producers and creators of The Man from U. I still have my junior U. E badge to allow admittance to Section II - Operations, sent to me after remitting a check to join the U.

These PG-rated James Bonds of television fueled my passions and dreams, and tie-in novels and clone tongue-in-cheek spies filled my first bookshelves, muscling out the classics except my beloved Sherlock Holmes. My first and only short story attempt starred a cat who was a spy, working for an organization called K.

Waverly in the case of The Man from U. Through the fabulous pattern-spotting ability of a unique computer called MindReader, nefarious schemes and evil plots by insane scientists are uncovered or detected, sending the DMS special ops teams into action around the world! This series is not literary, and it is not overtly a satire. However, the series, so far, is a purely delicious, goofy if bloody, high-octane black-ops adventure of fighting evil scientists. But who cares, if it is fun action beach-reads which fire your brain cells! There are many who will find this too stupid, I think, but not me.

I recommend this series, gentle reader, but only to those who love silly James-Bond-type spy action novels. Mar 11, Jason Brown Toastx2 rated it really liked it Shelves: Because Patient Zero was so stinking good, The Dragon Factory arrived with a taint of wariness to it. I was fearful that book 2 of the Ledger series was going to disappoint.. I was dead wrong… my oh my, how could i ever think such things?

Joe Ledger has some stamina to him. In Dragon Factory, you will run across mass conspiracy, genetic mods, nazi fringe groups, assassinations. The plotlineis twisted enough to leave MC Escher impressed but looking over his shoulder into the shadows. Keep up the great work Mr Maberry! Reread this in print, also thanks to Paperback Swap, following up my enjoyment of rereading Patient Zero in print. I realized rereading this in print that they are the modern equivalent of the penny dreadfuls, in the sense of cheap, sensational fiction.

I have a place in my heart for cheap, sensational fiction and I believe this fills this bill on several levels of the meanings for cheap and sensational. It is probably the reason that my rereading leads me to skip ov Autumn , now. It is probably the reason that my rereading leads me to skip over the villains' sections and just read about the good guys. Although it changes a bit as the series goes on, at this point the villains are not very complex which makes them not very interesting.

Joe is also not very complex, but he's a hero. I can dig simplicity on the heroic level. Below is my original review of the audio book. How will he do on the island of Dr. In The Dragon Factory Joe is evading government agents trying to shut down the DMS, is the only man alive to have defeated genetically engineered super warriors, and is romancing his beautiful fellow agent Grace Courtland.

And that's just in the first few chapters. Once again, Jonathan Maberry weaves a threat we know with a threat from fiction. A mad scientist Cyrus is using genetic experiments to mold the world in a way that will have horrific results for the population at large. Did I mention he's German? And enjoys cloning as a light pastime? Meanwhile, a pair of amoral, super intelligent, albino twins are mixing and matching genetics to create creatures of myth and monsters from your worst nightmares.

Joe's got to find and stop all of them before the "Extinction Wave" doomsday program counts down to zero and releases havoc on the world. With a little help from Top, Bunny, Grace, and the enigmatic Mr. I enjoy the way that Maberry mashes up several genres, with tongue in cheek, and produces a pulp fiction style, action-packed, roller coaster ride that keeps me on the edge of my seat.

This book tells a good portion of the story from the crazed villains' point of view, to good effect. I really love the dysfunctional family of super-villains where the children have disappointed the father by not having enough "vision" and the kids have giant "daddy" issues. I didn't initially realize what that meant when filtered through the horrific mindsets of Otto and Cyrus, but the result was a surprise that led to some interesting musing about free will versus evil and nature versus nurture. It isn't terribly deep but I still found its inclusion refreshing in a book of this sort.

I'd rather hear these books narrated than read them myself just for the sheer enjoyment of Porter's style and emphasis. Make no mistake, The Dragon Factory is a straight-up thriller without a lot of twists and turns in plot.

You read it for the hunt, for the action, for the adventure. You also read it for the twists of humor, the pulp fiction style, and the monsters.

Especially for the monsters. It's a good time at high speed. What more can you ask? This review is from SFFaudio.

May 25, Giovanni Gelati rated it it was amazing. First off I must come clean about a few things in regard to Mr. He was nice enough to add me as a friend on Facebook and allow me into his world as we do there. His work with Marvel Comics and the graphic novels were all that was on my mind. What a mistake on my part, I know for many of you I am not imparting something new, the quality of his writing is amazing.

Finding new novels to read, another avenue to go to is great, and this is definitely one here. The story revolves around the now running Doomsday clock.

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