TBR Audiobook Review: Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao

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 labelled 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. 

My Review

I don’t know how I found this book/audiobook but I’ve had it in my Audible library since December last year. I needed something to listen to while going to the leisure centre this week so I started listening. There may be spoilers.

Oh my! I’m glad I did. I don’t usually like YA because it’s all a bit heteronormative. Not this one! I’ve just finished listening to it, and I can’t wait for the next book. Massive cliff-hanger ending, although I’m sure Wu Zetian will do something magnificently violent to resolve the problem.

This novel is not a retelling of the life of Empress Wu, the only woman to ever rule China, but it draws on certain stories about her life and other aspects of Chinese history and folklore. There’s the Great Wall and the Mongol invasions for a start, the ‘strategists’ are clearly Imperial eunuchs and the ‘sages’ are perhaps cognates with Confucian sages who influenced laws and social conventions in China until the Revolution.

The novel uses a central trope of YA fiction and romantic fiction – girl meets boy, girl loves boy, boy loves girl, separated by circumstances, girl meets another boy, girl hates boy, boy wins girl over, boy 1 returns, girl must choose between boy 1 and boy 2, happy ending off-screen – but then plays with it. For a start, ‘the triangle is the strongest shape’. Xetian refuses to be controlled by conventions and that includes her romantic relationships. The relationships develop slowly as they get to know each other and realise they have all been manipulated and abused by a system that benefits from controlling the population with poverty and false information.

Manipulation, propaganda, and social convention are central themes of this novel, and the importance of asking ‘why?’. Can’t disagree with that. Most social conventions are bullshit anyway; if they don’t have a logical, easily and accurately explainable reason, they’re probably just their to control you. There is no hammer, you don’t have to stay in the crab bucket.

Zhao tackles misogyny head on in this novel, with a protagonist that almost always sees it for what it is. She also falls prey to it herself when she underestimates a fellow pilot, which brings about a catastrophe as Zetian, Shimin and their lover, who’s name I can’t spell, but who is an absolute delight, reach for their final victory. The guy who’s name I can’t spell because I’ve only heard it, not seen it, surprises everyone in the end. Normally he’s not violent, until he is. He uncovers a terrible truth that leaves the world, and Zetian, in a difficult situation when the ‘gods’ speak and make demands.

The characters are fully developed, and the use of the mental connections and mind realms gives us a more fully rounded picture of their lives, given that the story is told by Zetian. It’s a clever way of developing the relationships and characters without a lot of exposition that would slow the narrative. This book goes at breakneck speed as Zetian hurtles from one disaster and fight to another, with little moments of peace. The use of chapter titles like ‘ever expanding hitlist’ hints at humour in the narrative, as Zetian finds things utterly ridiculous even when others want to shame her. She realises that shame is a self-imposed emotion, people try to force you to feel it for contravening some rule, like being videoed naked; if you have no problem with nudity, then the shame is all in the other person’s mind, not yours. They might be ashamed for the world to see themselves in such a video but why should you? They’re projecting their own beliefs.

I’m glad I listened to the audiobook, because I’d be pronouncing the names all wrong otherwise. The Roman alphabet doesn’t really capture pronunciation, for instance Huaxia is pronounced something like ‘wah-shaw, but the final ‘aw’ sound is abrupt. If I’d read it I’d have pronounced it ‘who-ax-sha’. The narrator also had excellent pace and tone, and I enjoyed listening to them.

I would class this book as science fantasy, somewhere between science fiction and fantasy with strong elements of both.

Highly enjoyable and moving novel, well worth a read/listen even if YA is not normally your thing.