I woke up today to the realisation that none of you know how obsessed I am with xiran jay zhao (cosplayer, media critic, youtuber, author, supremely attractive snarky intellectual person) and how excited I am for their sff historical pseudo retelling of hmmmmmm
china's only female emperor being a boss babe patriarchy destroyer while being 1/3rd of a supreme hot throuple sandwich in YA duology format coming to your nearest book platforms September 21, 2021
art for aforementioned supreme hot throuple sandwich
Anyways so like
y'all may know who xiran is y'all may know what the iron widow duology is y'all may even have been vaguely interested in reading the books but like.
I am here to make the fact that this is one of the only things I care about this year everyone else's problem
first let's do all the words
Iron Widow is a YA Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale retelling of the rise of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. The duology will follow an 18-year-old re-imagining of her as she avenges her sister’s murder by an intensely patriarchal military system that pairs boys and girls up to pilot giant magical mecha based on creatures from East Asian myth (Nine-Tailed Fox, Moon Rabbit, etc.), but in which boy pilots are treated like celebrities, while girl pilots must serve as their concubines. It will be out from Penguin Teen / Penguin Random House Canada Sept 21 2021, with book 2 to follow in Fall 2022. In the UK and other commonwealth countries besides Canada, it will be out from Rock The Boat on Oct 7 2021.
the official blurb
The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.
the official goodreads summary blurb thingy
Under siege by monsters beyond the Great Wall like that shitty Matt Damon movie, except the monsters are Cybertronian-like sentient machines, a society that has the fashion, social customs, and beliefs of Ancient China but futuristic tech fights back by pulling a Neon Genesis Evangelion and rebuilding their very invaders into giant mecha. A boy-girl pair in their teens, because of course they have to be teens, pilot the mecha Darling in the Franxx style, except in a much more sensible position (he hugs her from behind). Under command of human pilots, these mecha take on forms inspired by East Asian myth creatures and transform like Transformers through Digimon-esque evolution lines that get more humanoid as you go on. The pilots physically embody them, so it’s more Attack on Titan rules than Gundam. Oh, and they blast qi attacks, so the battles honestly read like a bunch of furries engaged in a Dragon Ball Z fight, and that’s no one’s fault but mine.
Bonus Summary for Weebs (by the author, Xiran Jay Zhao)
now more words but funny ones and also thirst traps
our main character everyone bow to the queen
throuple himbo #1 like even if you don't read any of those words right there you may have read “Godfrey Fucking Gao” and for simple creatures like myself that's more than enough. but also all those other words
throuple bitch #3 and like. I don't think half of y'all would even need to read the character summary short thingy after seeing Xiao Zhan right fucking there but like. if anyone was worried that this bitch was not gonna pull his weight in this supreme hot throuple sandwich well now we're not worried in the least.
and now we speak the language of the gods. memes.
all of this and more (art for the books INCLUDING mecha art) can be found on the author's official website here
also check them out on instagram for the cosplay stuff their youtube channel for asian rep in movies critique stuff and their twitter for all of that and more including multiple hilarious and very educational tweet threads on historical anecdotes
read the books, pray to our god xiran and hope the throuple don't end themselves before they end you and the patriarchy
happy reading!
