Iron Widow

Xiran Jay Zhao
Completed 10/25/2025, Reviewed 10/27/2025
4 stars

I tried to read the sequel first when I was reading the 2025 Lodestar nominees (for YA novel) in the Hugos.  I found it incredibly hard to follow with an unlikeable main character.  I was running out of time before the voting deadline.  I ended up DNF’ing it, totally frustrated.  I thought I’d give it another chance by reading the first book and then attempting the sequel afterwards.  Well, to my surprise, Iron Widow was terrific.  It’s been described as a cross between Pacific Rim (which I never saw) and The Handmaid’s Tale (which I read in the 80’s).  So in reading this, I had no preconceived notions.  Now I know why the main character can be grating, what the technology is, and how the world came to be in this situation.  It's based on a Chinese society, complete with a Great Wall and oppressed and abused women.  It's kind of a downer but it makes you root for the main character.  This book was nominated for quite a few YA novel awards in 2021 and 2022.  

Chrysalises are giant robots piloted by older boys and copiloted by older girls.  They use their minds and yin and yang energies to control the Chrysalises in the war against the mech aliens that are constantly attacking beyond the Great Wall.  Wu Zetian’s older sister was such a copilot who was killed in battle.  Many girls die as the boys will often completely use their copilots’ psychic energies, leaving a human husk.  Zetian is very bitter and wants revenge on the superstar pilot responsible for her death.  She gets selected for the Chrysalis force, testing very high on the psychic scale.  She’s paired with the superstar pilot and kills him in their psychic link, winning the battle herself.  As punishment, she’s paired with Li Shimin, who has scored higher than anyone else but is also a known family murderer and has sucked the life out of all his female copilots.  Instead of a monster, she finds an alcoholic who hates being a pilot, killing girls, and his life.  Together with Shimin and her best friend from home, the sexually ambiguous, well-bred Gao Yizhi, the trio set out to find the truth about why these girls must die, why they can’t pilot the Chrysalises themselves, and the nature of the aliens, truths which would undermine the whole misogynistic social order.

This is a very dark book with a very dark protagonist.  Zetian was abused by her father and forced to have her feet broken and bound in the traditional way.  Every step she takes is terribly painful.  With this horrible background, she was already predisposed to anger and bitterness.  This only escalates when her only joy in life, her sister, is killed, turning her into a revenge machine.  It’s tough liking her at the beginning of the book, but as her childhood is revealed, we understand what formed her into this bitter and rageful young woman.  Yizhi, her best friend, loves her, though Zetian knew she could never reciprocate since she was on a suicide mission.  But when she joins the force, Yizhi does as well as a strategist.  He becomes rather obsessed with Shimin’s story and finds a way for the three of them to share quarters so he can keep them safe.  Yizhi is a kind soul, someone to offset Zetian’s intensity.  

Shimin is a very interesting character.  We find out he too is a kind soul.  He used alcohol to keep himself numb after killing his soul mate in a battle.  One point I didn’t mention above is that a Chrysalis’ pilot and copilot are also sexual partners so that they form an even deeper bond for their psychic yin/yang connection.  When he meets Zetian and finds out that his soul mate didn’t have to die, he joins her crusade to overthrow the status quo.  However, he is jealous of her closeness with Yizhi, creating a complicated love triangle.

The relationship of the three is at first distracting but becomes an integral part of the story.  It gives them the strength to fight the aliens and against the injustices toward woman.  Of course, they meet roadblocks the whole way, not only from the military officials, but from parents and even their peer pilots and copilots.  The young women copilots who you think would be supportive of Zetian are defensive and uncooperative.  Yizhi’s father backs the Shimin/Zetian pair financially to influence the military into protecting them.  But even he has his own agenda in supporting them and it doesn’t line up with the trio’s mission.  It’s all very messy but very realistic.

I think the book can be hard to follow.  There are many characters and the book moves at a very fast pace.  But if you stick with it, I think you’ll be rewarded with intriguing world building and philosophy, not to mention a delicious twist at the end.  I give this book four stars out of five and am ready to take on the second book, Heavenly Tyrant.