Are you a fan of giant robots, alternate Chinese history and 18 year olds who wake up to choose violence every morning? How about a polyamorous triangle? Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow is one hundred percent up your alley. She brings her audience an epic story of one young woman’s journey to becoming the most powerful Chrysalis pilot in Huaxia. She rages against the societal chains placed on her for simply being born female. Nearly everyone around her constantly makes the mistake of underestimating her and she proves just how bad of an idea that is.
Zetian, an eighteen year old from a poor frontier province, dreams of vengeance—it's practically the first thing we learn about her. She plans on entering the army as a concubine pilot—women who aid male pilots control mecha suits called Chrysalises—and killing the man who murdered her sister. Her family is atrocious to her, showing her just how little her existence means to them in the face of military compensation when Zetian eventually meets the same end as her sister. Even Yizhi, a young upper class boy who loves her, cannot convince her to back down.
In her first official battle against the Hunduns she succeeds in her goal to murder the man who murdered her sister. In doing so she becomes known as an iron widow, a woman who sacrifices her own male pilot. Once her new status is cemented, Zetian earns a target on her back even after being paired with Li Shimin; his own status as the Iron Demon may have protected her a little bit, but Zetian quickly realizes that it’s her death that many other pilots are calling for. Especially when their combined qi levels turn astronomical.
Zetian is a spitting viper against most advice until Yizhi enters her life again and it’s with his help that she begins to understand Li Shimin—just as she becomes curious of the two young men’s intrigue in each other. While becoming Li Shimin’s True Match, the three realize that it takes them all to create a cohesive bond. Shimin and Zetian could only pilot the Vermillion Bird once the three of them connected.
I love Zetian. Her views on female subjugation and the skewed power dynamic between male and female pilots are paramount to her character. Girls are dying after every battle because the male pilots use them like batteries and she plans to stop it, but each battle she enters there’s a high chance of another girl dying. Other than Zetian’s attitude and her initial unwillingness to work with Li Shimin, the army has no reason to get rid of her—her power levels are triple what typical male pilots manage. She wants to gain so much influence that the need for human batteries becomes a thing of the past. Zetian has absolutely no problem imposing violence to obtain that goal and there's a lot of violence.
I have never been a big fan of mecha sci-fi or fantasy—no specific reason, I was just never drawn to it. I watched a lot of Gundam Wing as a kid and that was one thing, but it generally stopped there. Iron Widow is one of, if not my favorite, book I’ve read this year and I could see myself reaching further into the mecha subgenres. The battle scenes; the descriptions of both Hundun and Chrysalis alike; nothing let me down. I was constantly tugged along by a breathless excitement that I haven’t felt in months and months of reading books in 2021. Iron Widow hasn’t even been officially released yet and I’m already calling for the sequel and I genuinely cannot wait for the whole series, however long it may be.