Heavenly Tyrant

Iron Widow #2

by Xiran Jay Zhao

After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself at the seat of power in Huaxia. But she has also learned that her world is not as it seems, and revelations about an enemy more daunting than Zetian imagined forces her to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Despite having vastly different ideas about how they must deconstruct the corrupt and misogynist system that plagues their country, Zetian must join this man in a dance of truth and lies and perform their roles to perfection in order to take down their common enemy, who seeks to control them as puppets while dangling one of Zetian’s loved ones as a hostage.

With political unrest and perilous forces aiming to undermine Zetian at every turn, can she enact positive changes as a fair and just ruler? Or will she be forced to rely on fear and violence and succumb to her darker instincts in her quest for vengeance?

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult, Queer, Romance, LGBT, Fiction

540 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 24, 2024

About the author

i'm in a cow suit because 7 years ago i made a promise to my friends to take my author photo in it if i ever got published and i'm sure as hell not backing down

Reviews

[Xiran Jay Zhao]

**CORRECTION ALERT: It's come to my attention that some people have been reading a certain scene in Chapter 46 in a way I did not intend, so I am issuing a formal correction. The ebook has already been fixed, and the updated print copies should come in about 6 months. If you own an existing print copy of Heavenly Tyrant, please take a pen or pencil and add the following lines to the top of page 434: [We can sculpt anything out of spirit metal. I could even FEEL through it. We can make this work.]

If you haven't read to that point yet, you can cover the text with a piece of paper to avoid spoilers while flipping through the book. The page is on the lefthand side.

If you own a library version, please put it on a sticky note and mention in brackets that I the author issued the amendment.

The clarifying lines are meant to be narration, following right after page 433. Hopefully, this will remove the scene's ambiguity.

The audiobook will not be updated due to the logistics being too complicated, but the lines WOULD'VE come at 15:22 in Chapter 46, after the line "It's YOUR turn."

Thank you, everyone, and sorry for the trouble! I really thought it was plenty obvious that he was about to get pegged.

(Note about the age rating of this series: It initially sold as YA and its contents fall well within the norm of Upper YA, which is meant for older teens and up. There is a massive difference between Lower YA and Upper YA, just as there is a massive difference between a 12 year old and an 18 year old. However, I understand that different people have different expectations when they hear “YA series” and may not be aware of the industry history that caused the recent normalization of mature content in Upper YA, such as the failure of the New Adult genre to establish itself, the shelving of books by femme-presenting authors into YA no matter the contents, and authors not being able to jump age categories mid-series even as their themes matured. Due to this widespread confusion, I will no longer personally be marketing this as YA, though please keep in mind that I cannot control where booksellers and librarians stock it. To be cautious, I will refrain from putting graphic, extended sexual activity on page (you can see that even the amendment above is very vague), but please be aware that the level of violence and sensuality in this series is not appropriate for younger teens, and I as a person do not approach social media as if I have a mostly teen audience. All main characters in this series are over the age of 18.

For my full discussion about the messy industry history that plagues YA, please see this video: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMkVmruvw/)

-----
Sorry this is going to be so late; publishing didn't pay me enough to prioritize writing it. I got exactly 14k USD in 2020, the year I got my book deal, and 4k in 2021, the year it came out and sold at least 65k copies. Because it's publishing standard to only pay authors twice per year, and for sales periods months ago, I didn't see another cent until late April 2022, almost 8 months after Iron Widow released. In the meantime, I had no choice but to write and sell another series, Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, my Yugioh-inspired Chinese myth & history adventure book, and make YouTube videos to make ends meet. Authors cannot be expected to pump out bestsellers on theoretical money. See full story here.

Since I get asked this a lot: No, there's no way to buy my books directly from me. The royalties will get to me with months of delay no matter where you buy it and which format. But I recommend buying from your local indie bookstore or Bookshop.org if you're in the States, because it shares profits with indies.

(People from my publisher, if you're reading this: this is not a personal dig at you, it's industry critique. I don't think you get paid enough either and you should unionize. You know you have my full support.)

--
original comment:
Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it in the worst way possible.

[caro · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

"krusty krab is unfair! mr krabs is in there!" says the tiktok dark boyfriend with a "dragon size" penis. "don't you dare seize my private property!" says the blue haired non binary god alien. "oh no! if it weren't for... the baby!" says katniss-wu zeitan, while texting god from her ipad. "i'm in the cuck chair" says yizhi from the cuck chair

[Carol (bookish_notes) · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, this is NOT a duology. This book ends with a cliffhanger and the publisher lists this book on Edelweiss that it is part of a trilogy. When I picked this audiobook up for early review, there was no marketing anywhere to readers to indicate this was an incomplete series and still had (at least) another book to go.

The review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS so if you’d rather read no spoilers at all, please stop now and don’t read this review. I think there will be an audience for this book, but I am not one of them and I will go into why in this review.

This was a highly anticipated release for me. I loved Iron Widow when I first read it, and even though I have read 200 or so odd books since then, I re-read the first book before starting this one and I still think that is a very solid book that I thoroughly enjoyed. This book though? I hated it.

I wouldn’t say you need to reread the first book before reading this book if you’re here for the polyam romance with Wu Zetian, Gao Yizhi, and Li Shimin. In fact, if you're here for the romance, you might want to go ahead and bow out now. Your faves are NOT going to be in this book in any meaningful way the entire book. One love interest only appears in dreams and at the very, very end. The other love interest is basically a background character and Zetian doesn't even get to hold hands with him. They have to meet in secret and they literally can't even hug one another. We do find out more about Yizhi’s backstory which was interesting (and depressing) for all of a few minutes. Didn’t really dive too deep into it with this book. The marketing for the first book heavily leaned on the polyam romance and I expected that same dynamic here? Well, forget it.

There is a new guy, the emperor who has been frozen in slumber for 221 years, Qin Zheng. And I'll go into him more further down in the review, but even he takes a backseat to this story even though he's supposed to be emperor with Zetian at his side. He had potential as a new morally grey/dark romance love interest with all toxicity that implies, but he gets shoved to the sideline for much of this book. So even for a romantic/entertainment aspect, he’s a disappointment.

Zetian still has that fire of feminine rage about her and wanting to do better for her people and other women in Huaxia, but at what cost? By the end of this book, I was questioning if I'm supposed to feel bad for her or if I'm supposed to wish for her downfall...because her governmental policies she enacts with Qin Zheng has people living in fear, turning on their friends and neighbors, and people getting brutally executed on the daily. It certainly has me questioning if this is supposed to be a villain origin story?

Content notes included at the beginning of the audiobook include violence, abuse, body horror, mass murder, toxic relationship dynamics, discussions of reproductive cohesion, allusion to childhood sexual abuse, and references to miscarriage, domestic violence, sexual assault, and suicide.

I would add the following: disfigurement (cutting someone’s finger off and forcing prisoners into being eunuchs), medical conditions (including foot binding, stroke, and presumed medical ailments due to lack of built up immunity), magical cure for a disability, misogyny, mentions of torture (including starvation, sleep deprivation, and physical torture), a hunger strike, burning people alive, beheadings, mentions of organ harvesting from prisoners, forced sex work, and impregnating a surrogate.

This book picks up right after the ending of Iron Widow. Qin Zheng narrates the prologue and recaps the moments right before he got put into his frozen state, and what he experiences right after he wakes up. This was the best part of the whole book. It's a shame this book isn't dual narrated and Qin Zheng only narrates the prologue and epilogue. But seeing as how this book is already almost double in size from the first book, maybe we didn't need it dual narrated.

I did wonder just HOW the government was meant to function since the ending of the previous book had Zetian basically murdering almost everyone of note (including her own family). I'm not sure how well the author planned this out because this is where the story absolutely flounders to find its footing. Zetian is 18 with no formal education and makes decisions on a whim. She is not a planner. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing until you realize she means to rule.

Qin Zheng balances this out (if only barely) since he was previously Emperor himself and quickly takes control of the situation and sets up shop while Zetian is recovering from the events at the end of the previous book. But in the end, Qin Zheng is only in his 20s (by Zetian's estimate, I don't think we get an exact age) and his policies, while noble, is more idealistic rather than realistic.

This book is like a polisci class that I did not voluntarily sign up for. It dives into philosophical commentary that lasts way too long. It’s very heavy handed. If you love a study into what can create instability in an economy, this might be the story for you? This book is a VAST tone shift from the first book, as the author has admitted on social media. You want fighting mecha/Chrysalis battles? Forget it. This is a book on policies and how to run a government (or rather, how to fail running a government).

Sure, you can enact policies to better the lives of women, introduce healthcare, tell people to strike up against the wealthy, enable a way so everyone earns the same, but as we see in this book, this starts leading to revolutions against Zetian and Qin Zheng if the implantation is too much, too fast. I think they have idealistic views on how to make the country better, but their way of doing things has lead to anyone who doesn't agree with them (or even SUSPECTED of not agreeing with them) to public beheadings, imprisonment, or being brutally beaten to death. Did they accidentally create Communism? If anything, this book is showing the feminine rage to dictatorship pipeline can be a slippery slope. Is that the lesson I'm supposed to be taking from this?

Zetian is still the main character and the book is still primarily from her POV. However, this world is still a very patriarchal one and Qin Zheng has taken power from her with almost no fight at all. Even when Qin Zheng is quarantined for his own good, he‘s still the one everyone listens to without question. At best, you could say people are wary of Zetian because she’s still an unknown entity to the public and that’s why they don’t trust her but still. They only know about Qin Zheng from history books and legends, and apparently that’s enough.

I should note that one interesting thing this book questions is whether someone who has been in stasis for over two hundred years can truly be immune from viruses the rest of society had all those years to overcome. It winds up not being nearly as interesting as I wanted though because the whole thing becomes a moot point and all it does is sideline Qin Zheng to a single room for most of the book when he could’ve been out and about instead. So, an idea was had, but like many ideas in this book, it falls short.

We should talk about the disability rep in this book. All throughout the first book, we see Zetian adapt to her bound feet, whether it’s walking with a cane or with a wheelchair. That’s not something we usually see in fantasy books and it was good to see that rep. This book seems to want to do away with Zetian’s disability? Like a magical cure, she’s given surgery she never asked for sometime between the end of the first book and the beginning of this one while she’s out unconscious that’ll magically fix her feet. She is in recovery for the whole of this book so correct me if I’m wrong. Her feet are…fine now at the end?

I do think the bound feet situation from Chinese history is a tricky one to tackle because there are plenty of women who never looked favorably about it but were forced into it (and by the time my grandmother was born, it had fallen out of favor so I never did know anyone who looked at it favorably among my own living Chinese relatives). Zetian always looked at her bound feet with disdain anyways but is a magical surgery to suddenly fix things the solution for this series? I wasn’t expecting this plotline at all and now all I’ve done is side-eye the way her disability is handled.

We should talk too about the way the story forces disabilities on prisoners by making them eunuchs, only for said prisoners to die anyways with little fanfare? It’s yet another example of mindless violence Zetian and Qin Zheng partake in and there’s zero remorse or reflection why this is a terrible thing for them to do. The reasoning behind this plot is that Zetian needs a second pilot and while Qin Zheng is in quarantine, he approves of her getting a second pilot (the power indifference in the seats have been fixed at this point) but only from the prisons and only if the male prisoners chosen are made into eunuchs. For all the talk about female empowerment, I don’t know why it was never even a thought to get a fellow female pilot to power the Chrysalis with Zetian. Maybe I missed it on audio, but I don’t remember anyone even questioning Qin Zheng’s decision. And Zetian couldn’t care less what happened to the male prisoners.

There are more female characters who Zetian interact with in this book, but it’s very surface level. There’s not much depth to any of the other female characters. A new character is introduced as Zetian’s maid servant and she has revolutionary ideals and is allegedly very smart (all we see is that she can read and tests very highly on an exam. Her actions throughout this book don’t actually prove to me she’s very smart at all though. It seems she has more of a death wish). Then we have one of the fellow pilots from the first book who antagonized Zetian but started to be friendly with her this book. But she didn’t really bring much to the table either. Forgettable is one way of describing her here.

The author had commissioned artwork of two new pilots, one 13 and another 14, for this book who I thought would have greater significance, but no. There was no point to them at all.

Characters who I did like from the first book - Shimin and Yizhi are missing for most of the book. Zetian barely even has a minute to talk to Yizhi and Shimin is physically MIA until the very end. From the start, I thought this was a polyam SFF romance series and I feel misled. The characters we know and love get shoved aside for Qin Zheng, who isn’t even a new endgame love interest (unless he somehow changes his tune significantly and gets added to the polyam group by the end of the series. But I have my doubts). Zetian DOES have sex with Qin Zheng. So, if you’re not a fan of the main character having sex with someone outside their polycule, this one might not be for you. The story tried to make this a female empowerment thing where Zetian only sleeps with him to get what she wants, but it’s badly done in my opinion.

This book starts to hint at Zetian and Qin Zheng both experiencing their own forms of PTSD, but it never delves deeper into the situation. Zetian is haunted by her decisions of mass murder that include killing her family. Qin Zheng still has to live with the fact that he seemingly fell asleep one minute and woke up the next where everyone he once knew is now long dead and everything he’s ever known has changed. I wish rather than diving into all the politics, we could’ve focused more internally instead.

Should we talk about the forced pregnancy storyline? Or rather, Zetian was an unwilling participant where she thought Yizhi got her eggs from her without her knowledge and, with Qin Zheng’s sperm, impregnated another lady as their surrogate to continue their supposed line. And all the while, Zetian is forced to pretend she’s pregnant to mollify the masses who can accept her as a wife and a mother but not a fighter inside a Chrysalis. Zetian thinking Yizhi betrayed her was such a bad moment in the book. Like the situation turns out FINE but if there was ever a situation that would make me DNF, that would’ve been my last straw (but I am stubborn and wanted to listen to this book to the bitter end).

Even besides the more detailed sex scenes, this book now reads more like adult SFF than YA overall. The way this book is written is more akin to The Radiant Emperor duology, an adult series, than a YA one in terms of plot (slow as it is) and writing style. I love reading both YA and adult books but I think with the older love interest (as it were) and style of this book, I would recommend this more for NA crossover and adult fantasy readers.

Much like He Who Drowned the World, I highly disliked that book while many, many readers seemed to like it. I think it’ll be a similar case here. I hated this book and reading this sequel ruined the experience of the first book for me. I do tend to focus more on the romance aspect when the overall plot can’t hold my attention and to be honest, nothing in this book is worth 21 HOURS on audio.

This is significantly longer than the 12 hour audiobook from book one and I don’t know what we have to show for it. The romance with our fave guys from book one are missing from Zetian’s life and she’s gone off with a new man while failing to outsmart him. The country they’re leading is in revolt and they’ve tortured and killed so many people in an effort to stay in power.

There’s nothing to like about Zetian or Qin Zheng. The ending of the book is a shocker and one that is meant to be a cliffhanger but I can’t even be bothered. We learn the “truth” behind the Hunduns and there’s a side plot that’s wholly unnecessary about flying into space to speak to the “Gods” that dragged out for far too long and the things we do discover is too into left field for me personally.

The audiobook is narrated primarily by Rong Fu and I would say for the most part, it’s good. I did hear at the end that this is produced by a Canadian team and maybe that’s where the difference lies because the way the narrator pronounces the word “dais” drove me up a wall and I was hoping it was the absolute last time Zetian and Qin Zheng had to step on one. There’s apparently an American pronunciation for it that I’m used to as “DAY-us” vs the British one this audiobook uses that’s “DIE-us”. Drove me batty.

Other than that, the audiobook was good. Derek Kwan didn’t have enough parts to narrate. He only showed up for the prologue and epilogue as Qin Zheng. I almost wish Qin Zheng had more POV chapters so we could have more narrated by him. It’s a shame this wasn’t recorded in duet otherwise, but it is what it is. I winded up speeding up this audiobook from my usual 1.7x speed to 3x speed (which I don’t normally do) but I still found the narration listenable and it did help me get through a significant portion of the boring philosophical chapters.

The three year wait for this book wasn’t worth it to me. I even wound up canceling my Illumicrate preorder for the newly designed two book set. Who even knows when the third book will be out, but I don’t see myself bothering to read it at this point.

If you read this second book and loved it, then I love that for you. This just happens to be my most disappointing read of the year, and what a book to end 2024 on.

***Thanks to Libro.fm for offering this ALC up for review***

[Lucie V.]

UPDATE #2: Now we have a release date!!😃

UPDATE: We have a title!! AND A GORGEOUS COVER!!! 😍


Ohhh yes please and thank you! 😃

I already miss Li Shimin.

Iron Widow ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[ruaridh · Rating 1 out of 5]

i thought the lowest part of christmas 2024 would be getting skooshed point blank in the face with a water pistol at the pantomime. then, on boxing day, i descended into what can only be described as a cheese fuelled frenzy, texting my friends excerpts of this book as i tried to make sense of it. safe to say, somehow, Heavenly Tyrant shimmied under even my lowest expectations with ease to prove the bar was not in hell.

ok, i will admit i was no fan of Iron Widow. it was decidedly unfeminist despite its advertising, told through the perspective of a character so unlike other girls she actively told us all about it with questionable at best disability rep and topped off with a grating, at times annoyingly anachronistic writing style. that being said, the big robots bashing each other’s lights out was at least fun enough to pick up the sequel and second half to the duology. how bad could it be, right?

imagine my face when this ended sorely lacking in more than a handful of robot battles despite its excessive length and left on a cliffhanger for a third book.

i feel like its important to acknowledge before i dive into my shopping list of problems that i understand there were issues in the timeline of the editing process that would be unfair to ignore. however, i think it would be disingenuous to pretend that they excuse what ultimately felt like a rushed first draft which i cannot help but see as a let down for the fans who have waited and waited and waited for this sequel after missed release date after missed release date. had i been excited to read this after waiting for over three years i would have been devastated to pick up this. it felt like a mockery of Iron Widow.

the writing style in Heavenly Tyrant stayed as consistently clunky as the series opener, worsened by the use of even more anachronistic crutches that constantly threw me out of the story. i am not the type of reader to get hung up on an author not reinventing the wheel for champagne but this book has taught me my line in the sand is drawn somewhere before the repeated use of automatic pressure cookers, palace parking lots and jello shots in a setting where the existence of these seems entirely out of place.

at one point the mighty Mr Emperor Man even inexplicably used the word “bloke,” leaving me feeling like i was reading a fanfiction that hadn’t been properly Brit-picked rather than a science fantasy based on Chinese history. throughout, a slang filled modern English was used to denote a character as lower-class or rural in a way that started annoying, then quickly turned grating as the characters with power spoke in a cumbersome Ye Olde Timey English. it was a bizarre choice in a book of bizarre choices, unintentionally adding unchallenged classism to my growing stack of peeves.

it was not helped by the constant, almost ranting lectures that not only did not trust the reader but went so far as to treat them as if they were born yesterday, despite them likely being meant in a well meaning way. in fact, i felt as if i was being treated with contempt (and get used to this word appearing) as it clumsily tried to teach me good from bad in the same unnuanced style as Iron Widow, leaving little space for the shades of grey it so crucially needed. again, i was left frustrated at what could have been had enough time been given for the editing process, rather than the rushed timeline it received instead.

if my main issue had been with the craft i would be much more cheerful in this review but of course, instead, it decided to go all in on the school of toxic romance for its forced marriage plotline. i must emphasise before we get any further that this is a young adult book, advertised explicitly in the 14-17 year old age bracket, yet the latter half of the book is so filled with explicit sexual tension it would not be out of place in a dark romance book, yet certainly so in a YA. whilst i have and will always advocate against censorship in YA fiction, especially that which disproportionately impacts age appropriate explorations of sex and sexuality, this, at times, was nothing short of titillation and culminated in Zetian being left covered in bruises after her night with the emperor without any sort of textual challenge. it felt like it was desperately trying to escape the age category it was sold as in a way that actively held its core, younger audience in contempt. also, quite frankly, having to read “private property” be used as a safe word after the constant lectures on the topic was, in fact, a hate crime.

despite the explicit sexualisation of the relationship between Zetian and Mr Emperor Man there was an obsession to infantilise Zetian at every moment. in a crude combination of classism, ableism and what apparently passes as banter to the patterless, the reader was forced to suffer through such ditties as “no child has curves like you” and other such horrifying delights. i really invite you to sit with that quote, think about the target audience of fourteen year olds, and ask what type of psychic damage that would have done to you at that age. its just downright weird in a YA book. this whole book was just weird. i hate it.

beyond that it was all so painfully selfish. i had the pleasure of reading The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko immediately before Heavenly Tyrant in which a girl who just reached adulthood must navigate her post-revolution, post-monarchy homeland as she struggles in the blindspots the upheaval left behind. to compare the main character in that, who is so full of care and love for her fellow workers and who only wants a more comfortable life for everyone around her to Zetian, who despite the rambling lectures we get still only appears to care about herself, or at most the people she considers hers was almost painful. at times it felt like we got close to some worthwhile commentary only for that hope to be dashed as Zetian went for the most pigheaded option. this was not a book that cared but one that was contemptuous.

the violence that paired with this selfishness was frequently difficult to stomach. it was obviously trying so hard to be “this is bad!!11!!1!” and yet half the time the brutality felt self-indulgent. at best Zetian got, like, really sad you guys. it was soooooo inconvenient to her and hers. again, it felt like something that desperately needed expanded and brought forward but instead just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

it was all wrapped up in a dizzying display of disability injustice, whether it was the refusal of a power wheelchair in a throwaway line to further the imbalanced relationship or the poorly researched recovery periods that had Zetian on the most bizarrely finite recovery period after surgery. generously it was a mishandled attempt to provide some intersectionality, at worst it was a plot device pulled out only when some extra tension was necessary. ultimately, it perfectly encapsulated my issues with this book: an idea started but not finished, only picked up when relevant rather than developed as a theme.

and to top it all off i can count on one hand the number of robot fights there were.

i could go on about my grievances for days. be it the multiple allusions to the 2008 financial crash, the frequent use of “harlot”, the time when Zetian thought of her big bazonkas as she was trying to negotiate her friend’s release, the moment where everyone clapped (no, really), or the big robot dick jokes. truly, i could still be convinced this was all a bad dream.

if i had to say something nice at least Zetian had some girl friends in this books. but to immediately ruin that, one of them is a masculine lesbian immediately introduced as a sex pest, then berated for her ‘privilege’ to dress in a way that feels comfortable to her gender expression.

all of this to say i hated it. this is a sequel which truly is not worth your time. it does nothing to further the plot of the series until the last 50 pages, and the ends so suddenly you wonder why it bothered being over 500 pages in the first place. boo tomato tomato.

1/5

[Alexia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I’m feeling a mix of emotions about this book. I thoroughly enjoyed *Iron Widow* and appreciated Wu Zetian, especially since she’s inspired by the real Wu Zetian, a figure I hold in high regard. Her rage made her a compelling character in the first book, but in this sequel, I felt she lost some of that complexity and depth. At times, she seemed like a different person, and her moments of returning to her original self were all too brief.

While I understand she’s only 18, which might explain some of her choices, I found her actions a bit frustrating throughout much of the story—except for the ending, which showed promise. I still liked her but had moments where I found it challenging to connect with her.

On a positive note, Qin Zheng emerged as my favorite character. I would love to read an entire book centered around him. The author has done an impressive job illustrating the transformation of a ruler who is on the path to tyranny. Qin Zheng is not a straightforwardly good character, but his intentions to help the common people seem genuine, even if he’s starting to take a misguided approach.

The dynamic between Wu Zetian and Qin Zheng was truly engaging. The evolution of their relationship from hatred to lust and then something deeper, even if it was toxic, was captivating. I wish this aspect had been explored further—it added a lot of intrigue to the narrative.

In contrast, the romance subplot involving Yizhi felt underdeveloped. I don’t think the author effectively captured the complexities of love and relationships. I moved from indifference towards him in the first book to a strong dislike now, as his actions throughout the story felt off-putting. I struggled to believe his feelings for Wu Zetian; the way he treated her didn’t reflect genuine care. I hope that in the next book, his character can be addressed more meaningfully.

Li Shimin had limited appearances in this installment—only at the end—but I’ve grown to adore him even more. He represents a healthier dynamic with Wu Zetian and deserves more attention.

As for the plot, it felt quite chaotic at times. There was so much action crammed into the ending, while the earlier parts of the book seemed slower in comparison. While some elements felt a bit over-the-top, I still found enjoyment in the story overall. The ending has certainly left me excited for the next book, and I look forward to seeing how everything unfolds!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

{I drag my nails down my chest, leaving red streaks. What would it take for me to no longer be a woman? If I cut off my breasts? If I cut out my womb?}

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: https://youtu.be/zajLPqtaFwg

Okay, so if you're going into this expecting it to wrap the story up in a duology, I'm sorry to tell you that is not happening and it ends on a cliffhanger for a book 3.

If you're picking this up because you're super invested in the polyamorous romance that began in book 1...you are going to be very disappointed. Because there is none of that here.

That said, honestly I liked this pretty well. Not totally sold on the ending, but overall I found Heavenly Tyrant to be an interesting and compelling political sci-fi novel, albeit one that is kind of a different animal than Iron Widow.

At the start of the book, Zetian has wakened a legendary emperor, named herself empress, and is forced into a political marriage with this man that she hates. But is also eventually attracted to in a toxic and angry sort of way. Which kind of tracks for her as a character. They work together to overthrow the existing political order and empower a people's revolution. I know the author's note says this is only inspired by more ancient Chinese history, but if we're being honest there's a lot that is reminiscent of the Communist Revolution in China as well. I think this does an excellent job of exploring some of the pitfalls that can come with revolution even if it's well-intentioned, and the leaves the reader to decide what degree of fallout is worth it to displace a corrupt and harmful system. There are no easy answers.

I LOVED this element of the book, and to me it does follow logically from Iron Widow. And Zetian needs to learn difficult lessons about wielding power and the unforeseen consequences of policy changes if she's going to be empress. However I don't think the politics were what everyone was into and it tracks that this seems to be a very divisive book in reviews.

This book also has a lot to say about bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. Which feels incredibly salient. The treatment of women as property leads to some horrendous results. But I don't know why anyone would expect this to be a happy book. It's decidedly not. It is still a book about female rage, and learning how to eventually move past some immaturity and channel it effectively. The relationship she has with the emperor eventually becomes sexual, but I appreciate that while it's toxic and sometimes coming out of hatred, it is very clearly consensual. And the descriptions are pretty vague, in line with what I would expect from an upper YA book. What I appreciate about the series is that it takes a sex positive stance that allows the heroine to decide for herself how she wants to share her body and with whom, without any guilt about those choices.

For me the thing that brought this down a bit was the ending. It felt rushed with some major revelations that are not adequately dealt with in my opinion. Some of that may be resolved in the next book, but for me that was the weakest part. Overall though, I liked this quite a lot but it's not shocking that some people will feel differently.

[Sabina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Deeply disappointing!!! If I could tell the version of myself on June 22 2021 that was marking this as ‘want to read’ anything, it would be to pretend a sequel for Iron Widow was actually never coming out & to hope that some banger fanfiction would be put on AO3 to wrap up the cliffhangers. I simply did not sign up to read 450 pages of badly written political reform commentary and character assassination on every character I loved from Iron Widow 😀🫶 We fully lost the plot, lost the characters, lost the romance, lost the giant battling robots… and don’t even get me started on the super dubiously consensual relationship we were apparently supposed to invest in! I don’t know how this happened but it feels like yet another victim of the publishing industry deciding authors don’t need serious edits anymore. Someone get this off my shelf and come out with a version that went through seven more drafts!!!!!!!

Absolutely insane first read of 2025 😭😭😭

[Connie · Rating 1 out of 5]

That was not the rating I was hoping to give Heavenly Tyrant.

I loved Iron Widow - I loved Zetian being angry and taking what she wanted in revenge of her sister's death. I loved the spaces she made with the people she cared about, especially because they weren't "normal" sanctuaries. There was something freeing about watching one YA heroine burn the whole world down in hopes of starting all over again. Now I feel too old to be the target audience for Heavenly Tyrant. Zhao is definitely trying to demonstrate that actions have consequences throughout Heavenly Tyrant, but it isn't landing.

I'm going to talk about sexual assault in Heavenly Tyrant before I continue discussing the rest of the book. The spoiler tag below is being used as a trigger tag - please proceed with diligence. Heavenly Tyrant includes graphic descriptions of sexual assault and I will be discussing them.

The use of sexual assault in Heavenly Tyrant makes me want to throw up. It reeks of "plot parsley rape" in a way I didn't think the troupe was going to be carried into the twenty-first century. The rape scenes feel like a product of some meeting going "what's popular these days?" and half of the answer being "sex scenes". With all of Zetian's consensual partners unavailable, it feels like someone shrugged and said "well, a rape scene would work". I know that spice is selling in fantasy right now, but just shoving rape scenes in the middle of the book is incredibly dehumanizing to real-life sexual assault survivors to get a ranking on some made-up TikTok pepper scale. Sexual assault in literature can only be treated with a comprehensive approach, something that is not done in Heavenly Tyrant.

Some necessary context and it happens in the first chapter, so it's only a minor spoiler, but the majority of Heavenly Tyrant revolves around Zetian being imprisoned by Zheng (now emperor) after waking him up from the Yellow Dragon. Zetian is crowned empress and at about three-quarters through the book, Zheng and Zetian end up in the bedroom together. Zetian literally cannot consent - she's a prisoner. Zheng is known to be violent and has literally all of the power in the country. Zhao does some handwaving around this and completely ignores any and all discussions regarding grooming, which is bizarre considering the scene. I think it's deemed as a "non-issue" based on Zetian's actions later in the book, but like I said, sexual assault in literature can only be treated with a comprehensive approach that considers the impacts on real-life survivors.

I think Zhao's intention was to have a discussion regarding BDSM and kinks, but what I read was a discussion between a grooming rapist and an imprisoned young women about how "You are not free, empress. Not while you deny your desires out of shame others have imposed to control you.". I read this creepy old man telling Zetian it's not rape if her body wants it. It's not rape if he grooms her into thinking it's okay. It's not rape if he pinky promises not to use his power against her. Just to be clear - each and every one of those scenarios is rape. There's no consensual sex in this book and it never seems like any part of Heavenly Tyrant, or the acknowledgments, pauses to acknowledge that.

I understand that Zetian is a Strong Female Heroine, but there's no discussion on the absolute havoc sexual assault wreaks on real people. Nor is rape or other forms of sexual assault seen in Heavenly Tyrant ever considered as a part of the legislative reforms impacting every other part of the book. Consent, in general, is kind of just glossed over. Sexual assault of another woman is considered a heroic action at the end of the book. Zhao is silent on sexual assault, except for a blanket ban on prostitution based on Zhang's past, which means the rape scenes stick out like a sore thumb. I'm baffled the book in its current form made it to publication.

With regards to the rest of the book, several elements of it just didn't work for me. There were three main items which I just couldn't get behind: the introduction of new plot elements and characters such that no relationships / goals from Iron Widow are present, the insertion of "TikTok" speeches by the revolutionaries regardless if they fit the character and with no discussion / debate, and the inability to properly demonstrate that actions have consequences. I think the latter is seriously hampered by the two former items - any time Zetian started to look and see the human beings being crushed under the fight for power, instead of getting a humane moment, Zetian would be dragged off to deal with another plot item or a character would have a "TikTok" speech. Zhao addresses this in the author's note at the beginning and in the acknowledgments at the end, but I could never cheer for the revolutionary actions because it felt like the consequences were never fully being demonstrated on-page.

As I said in the beginning, I loved Iron Widow because of Zetian's desire for revenge and the safe spaces she created with the people she loved. I now feel too old to read revenge stories without consequences, but I was looking forward to seeing more of the people Zetian loved from the first book. Those relationships were fantastic, but the first think Zhao does in the first chapter is take all of that away from Zetian. The reader starts over with almost an entirely new cast of characters, with all momentum from Iron Widow lost. There's too many plot elements - instead of "figure out how to run a country just after the central government was destroyed" there are two other plot threads that compete for equal page time. It feels very Supernatural with regards to the plot, inserting a newer and bigger villain to extend the series. Readers picked up Iron Widow for the destruction of human power systems, but that isn't the focus of Heavenly Tyrant.

With regards to capitalism and tyranny, every fifty pages or so has a character do a monologue that feels like it came straight from TikTok. The vast majority of the cast has been undereducated, and the wording utilized doesn't fit with the rest of their character. Every time it threw me out of the novel, because it felt like I was reading a manifesto. There's concepts and language that make sense to someone paying attention in this day and age, but every time it happens it lacks any discussion from the characters about what it looks like in their world or any counter-proposals. Some of the facts were interesting and there was one argument I hadn't heard before, but it felt like a surface level "throw everything you can at the reader" without an exploration or understanding of any of the issues discussed. If I wanted a list of anti-capitalism theories, I could look it up on wikipedia instead of trying to read a novel that explores the impact of these theories.

At the end of Heavenly Tyrant, there's another "Russian nesting doll" plot element reminiscent of Supernatural to set up space for a sequel. I won't be picking up the sequel.

[Talkincloud]

OKŁADKA! CZEKAM NA TO JAK NA NIC INNEGO!

[Caitlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I waited eagerly for 3 years for this sequel so if it sounds like I’m bitter, I am.

I will keep this vague enough to not spoil Iron Widow because I still love that book and recommend reading it!

After the explosive end to Iron Widow and the challenges Zetian had to overcome to rip power back from the powers that facilitated and allowed the deaths of thousands of girls to happen, including her own sister, Heavenly Tyrant sees her confined to a room for the first chunk which was a great choice. I love that it gave us time to depress a little bit and focus on how Zetian was affected by the climax of Iron Widow, as well as allowing time to explore a key character that was introduced late in book one. It is also obvious straight away that key dynamics between characters have shifted and this sets the tone for the slower pace of Heavenly Tyrant. I won’t give too much away but this sequel is essentially what happens when you actually manage to overthrow a government? How is a revolution built and sustained? What do you have to be willing to do and sacrifice as a means to an end? Heavenly Tyrant is very political and a huge step back from the action of Iron Widow which I was really looking forward to.

I have three huge problems with this book, and that may not seem like a lot but two of them were CONSTANT for 500 pages.

1. The message of this book is very clear - eat the rich, abolish landlords, workers should reap the benefits of their labour, and other socialist ideals. I’m all for it. Love it. Let’s go. Then it kind of gets a bit on the nose, every concept and the motivations behind the concept are spelled out again and again and AGAIN. It gets to a point where you’re being hit over the head like ‘do you get it?? do you see what I’m talking about?? see how this relates to real life right now??’ YES. I GET IT. There are verbatim election catchphrases repeated multiple times throughout, I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE SAYING. I think this is a matter of, when I read a book I want the author to trust me to get it and draw my own connections, and there is no room for that here. I feel like even if I was someone who had never consumed any media or thought about anything, it still would have felt condescending.

2. I normally don’t agree when people saying ‘the author destroyed this character blah blah blah’ but… the author destroyed Zetian in this book???? Hello??? Who are you??? This is not the same girl who enlisted into the army to seek revenge for her sister’s death. I loved Zetian in Iron Widow because of her ambitions (even the self-destructive ones) and her determination to break out of the cultural norms that have been imposed on her, with the expectation to become a wife and mother. Then this same character becomes romantically attracted to or involved with every male she spends more than 5 minutes with? Please. It’s played off to be a girl boss move, and she’s using her body to get what she wants and to manipulate men in power, but it’s poorly done in my opinion. It just really staled the character for me.

3. WHY IS THERE SMUT IN A YA BOOK? Before anyone comes at me, yes it’s only a couple chapters and it’s not FILTHY, but smut it is!! My jaw dropped. How many industry professionals read this and said yes, that can be published for ages 12+??? Insane. I’m still shocked and it’s been 2 weeks since I read this. Iron Widow has fade to black/implied scenes and that’s totally fine. I don’t see how this wasn’t edited to fit the audience. If I’m reading a YA SFF, I am reading it with an expectation there won’t be smut.

Beyond all this, of course there were enjoyable moments and characters that I enjoyed. Everything positive just got so overshadowed unfortunately. This is book 2 in a trilogy, so I’m praying it’s middle book syndrome because I loved Iron Widow so much that I’d love to see this story through.

[Maisha Farzana]

Look at this GORGEOUS cover. 💗

Edit: we have a title & the title is savage. This book is going to be a WILD ride. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it...

Tell me it's coming out in 2022....👀👀

Please please please please.

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Content warning: This review discusses the depiction of sexual assault in this book.

Man, this book really went “f**k Yizhi,” huh.

2.5 stars. I never thought I’d give this book less than 3 stars, but there were some parts of it that were so upsetting to me that I can’t say I enjoyed this enough to be a 3-star read.

Let me start with what I did like. Qin Zheng was a fun character (with a few asterisks—I’ll come back to him later). It was fascinating to watch his charisma and the transformation of their society under his reforms. Xiran cites the reigns of Qin Shi Huang and the real-life Wu Zetian as the inspiration for the societal changes in Heavenly Tyrant, but it seemed incredibly obvious to me that the Chinese Communist Revolution was the blueprint. I also really enjoyed his training sessions with Zetian, expanding how we thought we knew qi and spirit metal worked in the first book. Zetian gets a bunch of female companions in this book, which was good to see. And the Chrysalis fights remain exciting set pieces, especially with the addition of Zetian’s eunuch-pilots and the new Iron Widows.

It’s interesting that there is an entire author’s note warning against viewing what the characters do as automatically morally right simply because they’re the protagonists, which I thought was overkill—and yet there are reviews that express horror at Wu Zetian and others’ actions. Yes, this is a violent book and the protagonists take violent actions, but that really shouldn’t be a surprise after how the first book ended? And from my limited knowledge (reading more about twentieth-century China is forever on my bucket list), the events in this book really don’t feel that out of place considering the violence that occurred during parts of Chinese history.

I went back and forth on my opinions on the anti-capitalist/communist theme. I can understand why some people complain about this book being a “political manifesto,” because it is quite ham-fisted in its messaging. Though, if you take the point of view that the Communist Revolution in China inspired this book (Mao Zedong was the one who famously said “women hold up half the sky”), I guess exploring socioeconomic class and sexism together make sense.

However, I really, really disliked the book’s decision to start a sexual/romantic relationship between Wu Zetian and Qin Zheng. Allosexuals: I swear it’s possible to have an interesting and dramatic relationship between a man and a woman without making it sexual or romantic. I was on board with their fascinating push-pull dynamic as mentor and (reluctant) mentee, but as soon as it became a physical relationship, I lost all interest. To be fair, I find hate sex boring to read. But I also found it to be a cheap, boring way to make Qin Zheng (you know, the guy determined not to have any exploitable weaknesses?) vulnerable for Plot Purposes. (Cynically, I have to wonder if this was just a way to cash in on the popular villain romance trope?) I also didn’t feel great about the fact that Zetian rails against being labeled as a promiscuous seductress in the beginning, only to eventually give in and fulfill that stereotype, even if Xiran was trying to make a point about women sometimes only having power through seducing men, I guess. At the same time, there wasn’t enough time spent developing their relationship for the “break free of your toxic ex” message to land at the end. So to me, everything about this relationship was just muddled all around.

(Side note: I’ve seen some people refer to the sex between Zetian and Qin Zheng as nonconsensual. I don’t feel qualified to have an opinion since I don’t understand how hate sex works anyway; I’ll just say that language about how “you’re saying no, but you secretly want it” does give me the ick, yeah.)

Furthermore, the way Yizhi was written in this book really disappointed me. I could accept Li Shimin’s absence given what happened at the end of the first book, but Yizhi’s character truly suffered due to the plot dictating that he couldn’t spend any time with Wu Zetian. This is where I feel conflicted about Qin Zheng’s role in the plot, since making him a major player is what caused Yizhi to fade into the background, such that the actions he took in this book felt incoherent. Yizhi’s turn from a rich guy comfortable using his privilege in Book 1 to a Qin Zheng-devoted “class traitor” in this book could have been handled in a way that made sense and deepened his character, but instead came off as shallow and something that just had to happen for the plot. There was so much potential for deepening his and Zetian’s relationship if the story had been executed differently. Instead, Yizhi is almost relegated to a side character, and the information we get about him only confuses rather than elucidates his character. Frankly, it’s gotten to the point where Yizhi feels more to me like a plot device than an actual character—like he exists to do whatever Xiran needs him to do, instead of being a comprehensible person.

I also thought it was tactless that Yizhi, himself a survivor of sexual assault (more on that below), engineered a situation that violates Zetian. Like, unless the point is to remove him as a love interest, what was the purpose of this decision, other than to make his character even less coherent? And if removing him as a love interest was the purpose, well, it’s a bold choice to take an element fans loved from the first book and completely destroy it—a choice that will understandably upset a bunch of readers.

Another issue I had with the book had to do with how a character’s backstory involving childhood sexual assault/forced prostitution was handled. The way it was revealed felt so casual, like it was written solely for the sake of exposition for Wu Zetian (and the reader, by extension), instead of a traumatic subject that Yizhi might find difficult to discuss, especially in front of his lover. Now, to be clear, I’m not saying Yizhi’s attitude is completely unbelievable, or that it’s unrealistic that a CSA survivor would ever talk about their trauma in such a seemingly casual way. But there is context lacking that would make that attitude understandable—especially considering Yizhi and Zetian live in such a misogynistic and homophobic society that I would assume rape of boys/men would be stigmatized, or at the very least treated as a taboo subject. If Zetian and Yizhi’s relationship was more prominent in the story, I would have expected this to be a major, emotional plot point instead of being treated like an explanation that needed to be gotten through as fast as possible. (Also, I'm sorry, but there is no way in this sexist, misogynistic society Yizhi would have been accepted as the leader of Syndicate if his history of forced prostitution was widely known. It just felt like no thought went into this backstory.)

And then, to make things worse, Yizhi is basically forced back into prostitution when he escapes to the Heavenly Court. So like…are we ever going to deal with his trauma? Ever? Or if not his trauma, at least how he feels about what he’s been through? As it is, I just don’t feel like this subject was treated in a sensitive way at all.

And ultimately, this is what lowered my rating below 3 stars. This is a book about misogyny, a book that tries to address misogyny in an intersectional way by bringing in socioeconomic class issues—and yet, the book shows that boys/men can also be sexually assaulted, only to…absolutely not address it. No acknowledgement that this is a problem worth trying to solve, even as Zetian and Qin Zheng try to address literally every single other societal ill. I am genuinely so upset about that. What message does this send—that sexual violence against women is a problem, but sexual violence against men is just a Grimdark Trope of the world? That the trauma men experience from rape isn’t a big deal, because we don’t even get to hear how a survivor feels about it? I don’t know, what is the messaging here???

If I were to sum up my feelings about Heavenly Tyrant, it would be that this is a book that had highs and lows for me, but the lows were really low, low enough that I am not certain that I’ll read the last book in this trilogy. Which absolutely sucks, since I loved Iron Widow and I adore Zachary Ying, but I guess I’m only human and there are some things that are hard for me to look past.

[Booksblabbering || Cait❣️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feminine rage incarnate is back… even angrier than before and hated by more.
I cannot believe this is a Young Adult book.

Zetian is hated by both men and gods, and heaven and earth cannot allow her to exist. After destroying the Kaihuang watchtower and the Palace of Sages, learning the truth of the Hunduns and nature of the gods, Iron Widow Zetian returns to Chang'an with Emperor-General Qin Zheng woken up two centuries later.
He declares her his Empress, pledging to deconstruct the corrupt and misogynist system that plagues the country.

Is this the choice Zetian must always face? Let one man terrorize her or be terrorised by the world?

Woah. If you thought book one was on the nose, heavy-hitting, and angry - wait until you read this one!
Zetian is still as vengeful as ever, but she finds herself making concessions, feeling over her head against the New Emperor with all these ideas she agrees with.

"The way to free women isn't by demanding they adapt to the traits men are praised for. Please remember that, Tian-Tian."

Some parts admittedly did feel too in your face - teaching labour philosophy, encouraging uprising against the proletariat, wanting collective ownership and meritocracy. However, Xiran cleverly shows how ideals don’t equal utopia. There are downfalls to revolution. Equality is not achieved overnight despite the new policies and power.
I also liked the emphasis on education and sharing information.

"Violence is not the answer, they say! But what do they count as violence, pray tell?
Do they count it when landlords buy up all housing with their existing wealth and then grow even wealthier off of tenants they would not hesitate to throw into the cold? Is it not violence when a hospital turns away a patient for being unable to pay for treatment?
Is it not violence when a laborer breaks his body in a factory, only to receive a mere fraction of the profits from his work?”

The ending… it’s probably going to be as polarising as book one. I am finding these types of crazy twists added in for the sake of shock factor has started to annoy me in the bookish trends.

I think this will definitely make you think. Especially with the current political climate. This book has been published at a charged time.
I still can’t over the fact this is a Young Adult book. This is rage incarnate.

For some reason, I thought this was a duology. Nope. Absolutely not. This gave major The Poppy War vibes.

Soldiers bow to strength. Despite all my studying, sometimes it really does come down to showing everyone how big your Chrysalis is.

Physical arc gifted by Transworld Publisher- SCREAMING THANK YOU.

Bookstagram

[Azhar · Rating 1 out of 5]

we waited THREE years for this? girl, ugh. if i knew it was gonna be so political manifesto, i would’ve just read karl marx. it’s so dense with it that at times i felt like i was back at uni reading a thick ass textbook getting cross-eyed. yawn. also, zeitan annoyed the shit outta me in this book, like girl, how can you be so dumb, smh. she was like a badly written wattpad version of the icon, katniss everdeen.

probably won’t be reading the next book for my own sanity 🥲 i was already in the trenches with this one fighting for my life lmao

[Willow Heath]

Fans of Iron Widow need to prepare themselves for a very different book here. Even if Heavenly Tyrant is a direct sequel, it is far removed from Iron Widow in terms of tone, pacing, structure, events, and more. I've read plenty of reviews and comments expressing disappointment in that fact, but I think it's an important strength of the novel! Times change, people change, and the narrative of Heavenly Tyrant reflects that masterfully.

Iron Widow was tons of fun; a loose retelling of the story of Chinese history's only empress, Wu Zetian, presented in an alternate future world of aliens fighting mechs. It moved at a swift pace, featured a queer polyamorous romance, and had plenty of exciting action scenes. But it was also a deeply feminist novel that examined class struggle, power structures, false narratives, and propaganda. Fans often hold Iron Widow up as a great feminist novel, and it is, but it does deeper than that: it explores every aspect of patriarchy and how that system of control is inherently racist and classist as well.

With that in mind, it's no surprise that Heavenly Tyrant is even more politically savvy and up-front than its prequel. It presents us with a situation reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and it does so with depth, nuance, and consideration. The leader of this revolution has grand ideals and shows moral complexity, but is far from being a wholly good person. To go any further down that path would be to spoil things, and this is a direct sequel so that's easy to do.

Heavenly Tyrant is slower, less action-packed, and more politically dense than Iron Widow, but given the trajectory of its world, politics, and plot, that is exactly what it needs to be, and I think it's every bit the masterpiece that the first novel was.

[Natalie · Rating 2 out of 5]

brb as I recover from the immense letdown and mind shatteringly long political philosophizing manifesto on revolutions that this was.

we have fully lost the plot with zetian’s full blown character hijacking by the author to just hit you over the head repeatedly with socialist political commentary and a devastatingly icky sexual relationship that had no business is a YA novel like this, let alone being glorified as some kind of warped power play when it really reads as grooming.

[Gretal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The people who are angry about Xiran Jay Zhao being "too political" are going to hate this lmao. While necessarily quite a bit slower than Iron Widow, I still had a fantastic time reading this. There were so many passages I highlighted to come back to. And of course, I'm very excited for the next one.

[Tiffany Sahulka · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel so bad, I DNF'd at 28%, beginning of Chapter 13. I believe I'm experiencing "Middle Book Syndrome" with this book. The soon to be released cover is absolutely stunning, but I feel that Zetian has lost her end game. From what I read, it feels rushed but not rushed... make sense? I understand that she needs to learn how to wield her new found power, but she doesn't have the same main goal as she did as in the beginning of the first book. Her main goal was to avenge her sister (which she did) and help all women, why did that change?? She seemed far more focused on 8 other things that I truly feel the author may have just ran with it.

Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book.

[Althea ☾]

i kind of need this right now.

this is the most excited i have been for a sequel in a while

[Karis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like I should've seen this coming, given the fact I've followed Zhao far before their debut published. From their struggles against the publishing industry to their advocacy/aid for Palestinians (Free Palestine), Zhao has become quite a force on social media. Despite my low opinion on Iron Widow, I let Zhao's actions speak for their character and was more willing to give leeway, especially because they were implying Zetian's actions would face consequences in this book.

If anything, it really feels like Zhao was punishing their readers, because this book is an excruciating long mess that breaks more than fixes.

I really wonder how much of the past four years, specifically after October 2023, have influenced Zhao so much that they could not write the book without using their characters as mouthpieces for their political and philosophical rants. I had problems with a lot of the elements from the first book, from its depiction of feminism to the handling of the poly romance, but at least that was interesting. The rants and lessons of laborism, worker's rights, conversion to communism, went on and on, over and over again as if Zhao themself wasn't sure you heard them the first ten times. This is why the book is 500+ pages, because these rants would take forever to get through. I don't disagree with what's being said at all. In fact, I think the majority of the people reading this would agree with Zhao, so why is Zhao talking down at us as if they wouldn't? I hate books that are so transparent in its message but don't trust the readers enough to understand. That's when the show-don't-tell writing gets utterly exhausting.

In my Iron Widow review, I thought Zhao would double down on Zetian and up the ante on her rage-based personality, but, if anything, Zetian regressed and it made her kind of worse? She is horrified by the mass murder she committed in the first book and questions every decision she makes as Huaxia's new empress. She still rages at things, but that rarely drives her to do action; when it does, it's usually her running to Qin Zheng to ask him if he can fix it. It's framed as her being afraid of her new partner and of the public's scrutiny because she's the hARloT (Yes, she is unironically called that) who mass murdered their previous government, but the Zetian of IW wouldn't of cared and would've plowed through those obstacles instantly. The Zetian of HT is an entirely new character who has less agency than her previous incarnation. She doesn't even have her partners to bounce off of, because one is MIA for the majority of the story and the other is shoved in the background and is directly complicit in SA with Qin Zheng (More about that later).

Zhao did attempt to give Zetian "good" relationships with other women, but they're surface level and, at times, make her seem worse. One is her assistant who is often the character used for Zhao's rants and helps Zetian with court politics, another is Yizhi's masc lesbian sister who flaunts her privilege to do so, Zetian's dead sister (She does have a name this time: Ruyi) comes back as a dream ghost who tries to convince Zetian to let women choose if they wanna be fighters or mothers before she is promptly ignored and never addressed again, and the aforementioned new women fighter pilots who are only given one intro and fight scene and that's it. The men, when they aren't sexist, patriarchal douchebags, are used to send the wrong messages, like Zetian being outraged over women being SA'ed and discarded pilots but not having the same energy for the men in this book who go through the exact same. She literally goes through the trouble of getting another prisoner male co-pilot because Qin Zheng was out of commission (He's stuck behind glass for most of the first half), but the guy gets castrated for no good reason (i.e., Qin Zheng is a possessive prick) and dies the exact same why her sister did! Zetian's devolution to being a horrible feminist is astounding, really, and to make her an empress who loses the willpower to lead is the cherry on top.

And the ""romance"" with Qin Zheng, who is essentially the main antagonist, it's just - so, so bad. Like I said, Zetian is afraid he'll kill her, which he constantly threatens to do, and decides to use her "feminine charm" in order to "manipulate" him. The book tries so hard to frame it as her decision, that's she's choosing all of this, but the book also makes it clear that she is still Qin Zheng's prisoner. She cannot do or say anything without going through him first, which eventually leads to Qin Zheng coercing her into sex (i.e., sexual assault). Again, the book tries really hard to frame this as Zetian using sex as a tool to get her way with the emperor, very girlboss of her, but it's not true! I know enemies-to-lovers is the thing right now in fiction, but so many of those same books have also fall into "the romance is actually wrong and rapey" hole this book plunged straight down into. How did this get published at a YA book?? This is not how toxic romances should be done in a book which is (theoretically) aimed at kids twelves and up! Their relationship would have been so much better if it was about Zetian and Qin Zheng attempting to psychologically one up the other as rulers, but no! WE HAD TO GET THIS!

Even if you somehow argue your way out by saying that wasn't SA, you cannot argue with the fact Qin Zheng stealing Zetian's eggs in order to inseminate them for a surrogate to carry isn't. The book even has the balls to lecture Zetian for her wanting to get rid o the pregnancy, stating that the surrogate had the right to carry the baby or not. YOU TOOK HER RIGHTS FIRST! And yes, this is the SA Yizhi is complicit in, which makes no sense because, as her previous partner, he is well aware how terrified Zetian was of pregnancy/reproducing. Plus, he's a victim of SA himself. He tries to explain himself near the end by saying he had to go along with the emperor's plan, but he did try to sabotage by messing with the insemination process, which may or may not have worked. Even so, it does erase the fact Yizhi helped Zetian's captor rip away Zetian's autonomy repeatedly. The Yizhi character assassination in this book is just so bad. It only made me more glad Shimin's character was gone so his wasn't buried further into the ground like his boyfriend.

Even with how much this book has mentally drained me, and how much I hate the fact Zhao extended this to a trilogy despite the initial one that it was a duology, I have to read the next book. I have to see how it ends, if the train wreck will explode more than it already has. We probably won't get it til, like, 2029, but I'm planning to be alive and literate.

God, and this is my first one-star read of the year. I can only hope I can only go up from here.


1/21/25 Edit: So, I just finished listening to the audiobook, and I have thoughts. But I'm tired and really don't feel like getting into all that right now. RTC.

[akacya ❦ · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025 reads: 47/300

this is the sequel to iron widow.

zetian is now in power, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and she’s forced to share her power with a dangerous man. despite their opposing views on how to address the problems in their country, they must work together to take down their common enemy.

i want to start this review by saying that i entered this book thinking this was a duology, but it’s not! and i am so happy about that! i just wanted to put that out there in case anyone else was mistaken like me.

now, let me say i’ve been waiting for this book since i read book one back in 2021. in fact, iron widow was one of the first books i received on netgalley! so, i’ve been HIGHLY anticipating this book and had high hopes for it. as expected, this book did not let me down in the slightest! i loved seeing how zetian differed in this book from book one, with being in a different position and in different situations. i also loved how the themes of misogyny and capitalism were explored. xiran jay zhao put so much thought into these topics and explored them well, in my opinion.

i can’t wait for book three!

pre-review from 2021:
adding this to my tbr even though book one hasn’t been officially released yet…can you tell book one is haunting me🥲💔 (in a good way ofc)

[Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book. I fucking H A T E this book. What kind of fuck ass sequel was that??? I went into this book thinking it was a duology. As far as I can tell it's not 🤡. It doesn't end in a way that would indicate an ending and if that is supposed to be an ending, it's dog shit. This book took EVERYTHING that was good about the first one and threw it in the t o l i e t. Zetian was already too intense for me in the first novel, but she's downright UNBEARABLE in this one. She's such a fucking hypocrite I can't s t a n d her. For something that's supposed to be so "feminist" I'm not even sure this passes the Bechtel test and all the other female characters are undeveloped as hell. There's such a weird dubious relationship with the emperor that involves way too graphic of sex descriptions than what I thought was appropriate for a ya novel, it actually repulsed me. Most of the cool mecha shit was just nonexistent, instead the plot replied on political scheming which I couldn't stand. Only for the last 20% to SUDDENLy have mechs again. I can't believe i wasted my time on this. The only thing that would've been worth that time spent wouldve been to see zetian dead by the end of it and i didn't even get that satisfaction. I'm a hater to my core, which is a shame because I had such high hopes :/.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read the first book at the end of 2023, so there were a lot of details I'd forgotten about. It took me some time to remember some of the more important things, and initially, I wasn't sure if I was going to stick around to the end. I'm kind of glad I did.

Zetian has grown up a lot since the first book, and she's fierce. She's also female, though, and that is to her unfortunate deficit. At every turn, the patriarchy is trying to take away her agency, trying to blame everything wrong in society and government on her shoulders, and confining her physically and spiritually. She's unable to say what she wants or see who she wants. She's even woken up to find changes were made to her body without her consent, along with other undesirable changes. But because she's our hero, she pivots effectively and uses all her intellect and compassion to get around all these barriers.

Book is set up for a third installment. I think I'm done here, especially if it isn't going to be published a while. Trying to remember everything from the first book was no fun. 3.5

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Tundra Book Group for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own

Things I already knew before reading:
(1) I have been waiting for this sequel since I read Iron Widow in December 2022. However, most fans have been waiting since September 2021( the month in which Book 1 was published). To say this sequel was eagerly anticipated is understating the feelings we have all been going through.
(2) Iron Widow was a 5-star read for me. Admittedly, it can be dangerous to do that to a series but I still stand by it.
(3)Zetian is an unapologetic and compelling female protagonist. I do compare many other female protagonists to her.
(4) I am not a sci-fi fantasy fan. This series is and I am digging it.


Things I know from reading this book
(1) A lot of my favourite authors have often stated book 2 in a series is challenging.
(2) Heavenly Tyrant is a lot more about the world-building and politics. A lot of dialogue about revolutions.
(3) I follow the author on TikTok and I heard their voice constantly as I was reading this book.

TW: VIOLENCE AND ABUSE, BODY HORROR, MASS MURDER, TOXIC RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS, DISCUSSIONS OF REPRODUCTIVE COERCION, Allusions TO CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE, Miscarriage, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, Sexual Assault, and Suicide.


Final Verdict: I am still in love with this series. Zetian certainly is put through the wringer in this one. I like the writing, the characters and the many conflicts that surround the book. I just wanted something more to happen. On the other hand, I will only really grow to appreciate Book 2 when I read Book 3. LOL! That's probably not the best way to describe it but it is what is coming to my mind now.


Expected Publication 24/12/24
Goodreads Review 07/12/24

[Read_btwn_the_lines · Rating 5 out of 5]

JThis was soo good!!

Is QIN ZHENG evil or not?!! From her view and his view, he's so confusing, but I'm left believing he's evil with his last thoughts

Unsure what's up with these negative comments. My only con was that there was little to no romance in this book. We really focused on world building and creating a political landscape that was important to the story. I understand and see the vision and can't wait for the next release.

I think this has the potential to expend to the story of others and be more than just a trilogy.

-----

Pre release:

Heyy bestie pls bring back our throuple! Please🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

[Sian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only motivation for making it through this was the TikTok review video i promised I would make. That review is going to be scathing. 1.5 stars.

UPDATE: The tiktok review did not go over well lmao so I'm gonna write one here because I'm mad.

This book is a mess. It absolutely needed another few rounds of editing (which yes, isn't the authors fault but rather the publishing industry yada yada yada). There were phrases used repetitively within a few pages of each other. Sentences were overly long and paragraphs were huge and filled with unnecessary information.

The world building itself is incredibly confusing, a mishmash of a bunch of different eras of Chinese history rolled into one. This means that a lot of the language pulled from modern vernacular is incredibly out of place. I mean, there's a page on 'shorting the market'??? I also docked a half star for the excessive use of the word 'harlot'.

If you loved the throuple from the first book.... yeah, you get next to none of that. Instead, you get a weird, toxic romance between this Emperor and the MC that is super uncomfortable the whole time. Toxic romances are ok if two things are made explicitly clear: 1) that the romance is actually toxic and 2) if the power imbalance is fairly equal. Friends, the balance was not respected.

The author announced that this book is more NA than YA in a social media post (there's a lot to unpack there) so the explicit content is acceptable. Personally, I believe that morphing your spirit suit so that you can peg your partner is crossing a line just a little. Also deciding that people should write a new line into the book because you weren't clear enough about what was happening is incredibly unprofessional.

Additionally, with this change to NA I would expect the writing to mature a little too and it didn't. There was a lot of cringey moments and odd narrative decisions included such as the Emperor allowing all of the MC's hair to be permanently layered off while she's' unconscious. Did that really need to be included? Weird.

In the spirit of being fair I have to say that I really liked that Xiran included the idea that society's become less progressive through hard times and often find particular groups of people to pin said hardships on. It was done well and it isn't something I see explicitly mentioned often, even in the most political of fantasy/sci fi novels.

Anyways, I will not be continuing the series. The break between book 1 and 2 was far too long when you consider the quality of the finished product. I can't see this improving as long as Xiran is writing this series with this particular publishing house.

[Audet Maxime · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sequel to Iron Widow is going to give many readers whiplash. While the first book was going at a breakneck speed from start to finish. Heavenly Tyrant goes at the polar opposite speed and sometimes feel like it not moving at all. There very little action scenes and most of the book is spent slowly exploring themes of government, revolution/reform and politics. The core of those explorations is interesting, but there is a clear lack of editing that accentuates the slow pace: This didn’t need to be 500ish pages and at times the writing felt amateurish.

Only the next book (this is now a trilogy) will decide if this slower pace was worth it in the end.

[Stella ☆Paper Wings☆]

🕯Zetian will be nonbinary 🕯 Zetian will be nonbinary 🕯 Zetian will be nonbinary🕯🕯

[Georgie Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

idk who i’m more pissed at, this author for destroying literally all of the characters’ personalities, or myself for not DNFing when i had the chance.