Hardcover, 384 pages
English language
Published Sept. 21, 2021 by Penguin Teen.
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will …
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.
This is one of the best sci-fi books I’ve read in a while. It crushes every trope under the foot of a giant mech. Can’t wait to read more!
„Iron Widow“ ist ein lauter, wütender Aufschrei gegen Unterdrückung und missbräuchliche Systeme, die Teile der Bevölkerung als bequeme Ressource verheizen, ohne sie als Menschen zu sehen. Gewürzt wird das ganze mit queeren Charakteren und bombastischen Kämpfen zwischen Mechas und Aliens in einer kreativen Reimagination Chinas.
I like Xiran Jay Zhao. They're a great content creator and their Twitter is something to behold. So it was only a matter of time until I got to Iron Widow. That time was this week when I had a 5 hour bus journey in front of me and needed something to entertain me.
It was certainly a quick read for my standards. But then, I always seem to eat through YA literature as opposed to everything else I read, even if I go out of it with a sense of dissatisfaction. Which is not really something I felt here, even though the book has left me wanting in the worst possible way. The characters are... fine. Wu Zetian is the main character and thus the most fleshed out. The two love interests (it's an actual love triangle!) are somewhat shallow and everyone else is either window dressing or someone …
I like Xiran Jay Zhao. They're a great content creator and their Twitter is something to behold. So it was only a matter of time until I got to Iron Widow. That time was this week when I had a 5 hour bus journey in front of me and needed something to entertain me.
It was certainly a quick read for my standards. But then, I always seem to eat through YA literature as opposed to everything else I read, even if I go out of it with a sense of dissatisfaction. Which is not really something I felt here, even though the book has left me wanting in the worst possible way. The characters are... fine. Wu Zetian is the main character and thus the most fleshed out. The two love interests (it's an actual love triangle!) are somewhat shallow and everyone else is either window dressing or someone that violence is enacted upon in some way. Seriously, if you like violence and revenge fantasies, this will be right up your alley. Zetian leaves a trail of destruction in her wake that is bar anything I've read in recent times.
That comes at the cost of narrative depth though. There's so many elements to this scifi-fantasy version of medieval-modern China that are essential to the story - most importantly the concept of qi, which the pilots of the giant animechs people use to fight - that obviously have a lot of thought behind them but are explained so badly that, even after reading the book, I still have no idea what any of them are supposed to do. There's so many instances of "so I combined my Metal qi with his Wood qi" or whatever and I just kind of glossed over it as technobabble. Which is really disappointing because, again, there seems to be an actual system to this whole thing?
But none of that is explained in a satisfactory way because we need to get to the next fight, battle, torture, or romance scene as quick as possible lest the book lose the interest of its readers. It seems to have worked, as evidenced by the speed I read the book with. But it really didn't give me any opportunity to just let the whole thing sink in. There is no space to breathe between the pages which would've been necessary considering the onslaught of stuff that is happening. It also doesn't provide enough space to explore any of the character's motivations. Zetian is driven by revenge against a patriarchal society, that much is established. But she goes from "I hate my family" to "The. World. Must. Burn." so quick, it gave me whiplash.
I'd still say it's a decent read. And I'll probably read the second installment, as this seems to aim to be a series. But it neither left me hungry for more, really. Nor did it satisfy in a narrative sense.
