Iron Widow

Xiran Jay Zhao's debut novel, Iron Widow, is a re-imagining of the history of Wu Zetian, empress of China during the late 600s.[4][5][6] In an interview with Publishers Weekly, they stated that "there's no other woman in Chinese history who had a rise through the harem as iconic as hers... It's been incredibly fun to reimagine her as instead a teenage peasant girl in an intensely misogynistic world who suddenly gains access to giant fighter mechas—how would she change her world?"[7]

The nation of Huaxia, a futuristic reimagining of Medieval China, is constantly under attack by alien creatures known as Hunduns. Aided by the mysterious and unseen gods, known as the Heavenly Council, humanity has recovered from a devastating attack that wiped out the modern era ages ago and forced civilization to rebuild. Humanity has learned to harvest the bodies of defeated Hunduns to created giant fighting mecha suits, called Chrysalises. Chrysalises are piloted by young men who register high levels of spirit pressure and can release their qi, which follows the five classical Asian elements. Treated like celebrities by the media and adoring public, male pilots rely on female pilots, called "concubines," who supply them with the necessary additional qi, but at the cost of their own lives, as their mind is typically overwhelmed and absorbed while co-piloting the Chrysalis. Male-female pairings that can co-pilot without risk of death for the female pilot are called Balanced Matches, but they are rare and treated as celebrity marriages. Though some male pilots are strong, none are stronger than the legendary emperor Qin Zheng, who was rumored to have frozen himself hundreds of years ago in stasis within his Chrysalis, the Yellow Dragon, to stave off an illness until a cure could be found. This location, in the Kunlun Mountains, was lost to Hunduns centuries ago and rural areas near the lost territory are under constant threat of Hundun attack.

Wu Zetian, a peasant girl in this region, is found to have above-average spirit pressure, and plans to enlist as a concubine in order to avenge her older sister, who died after co-piloting a Chrysalis. She struggles with the reality that her position as a girl is a burden to her uncaring family, who only value their daughters for the money their deaths in service as concubines will fetch them. Despite being in love with a wealthy childhood friend, Gao Yizhi, son of the corrupt media mogul, Gao Qiu, she resolves to avenge her sister even if it will likely mean her death. Testing even higher than before during the army's spirit pressure screening, she successfully arranges to be paired with her sister's co-pilot, Yang Guang. As their minds meld while piloting the Nine-Tailed Fox Chrysalis, she sees memories of the many girls he's abused and absorbed during his career, and instead overwhelms him with her willpower, killing him. She surprisingly finds she can control the Chrysalis herself and defeats the attacking Hunduns. Her survival has her branded as a dangerous and rare "Iron Widow", with the potential to absorb male pilots. Her spirit pressure now registers at extraordinarily high levels unheard of in most pilots of any gender. Feared, but conscripted, she resolves to find a way to destroy the Chrysalis system and its reliance on the sacrifice of female pilots.

To keep her under control and at a disadvantage, the army pairs her with their strongest male pilot: the imposing Li Shimin, who pilots the Chrysalis the Vermillion Bird. Shimin is a conscripted criminal and pariah for murdering his family, while Zetian views him as heartless like all the others for using girls' lives to fuel his victories. However, she and Shimin manage to pilot together as a Balanced Match and become an even stronger asset to the war. Their mental bond in the Vermillion Bird causes Zetian to learn more about Shimin's past, and she discovers that he is actually a studious and gentle artist, who murdered his family for gang raping a young woman, and who is kept in service to the army through a forced addiction to alcohol. Likewise, Shimin is awed by Zetian's determination and anger at the misogyny of their society and her desire to fix it. Though their relationship as a Balanced Match is largely for the public, the two fall in love.

When they are relocated to the capitol, Yizhi pulls strings to be able to assist with her and Shimin's training, in an effort to keep her alive. Under his supervision, he helps Shimin break his alcohol addiction, and she and Yizhi secretly rekindle their love. Zetian also realizes that Shimin and Yizhi are attracted to one another as well, and the three secretly enter a polyamorous relationship. After a heavily televised battle where Yizhi publicly gives his qi to support the Vermillion Bird in defeating a massive Hundun, the three strike a deal with Gao Qiu to boost Zetian and Shimin's image, and ensure their continued value to the war effort. Noticing strange irregularities with other Balanced Matches, Zetian, Shimin, and Yizhi begin to suspect that the concept of natural female pilot weakness is a lie and that the Chrysalis system is biased toward the survival of the male pilots. On the eve of a major counterattack to retake the lost territory, the two pilots kidnap and extract a confession from a high-ranking official that corroborates their suspicions: Girls are just as likely to have strong spirit pressure as boys, but the co-pilot system is rigged to funnel the female pilot's qi to the male pilots, and ensure their survival in combat because society prioritizes males. Vindicated in their suspicions, they plan to win the counterattack and expose the recorded confession at the height of the televised spectacle.

However, the counterattack against the massive swarms of Hunduns in the lost territory proves to be more difficult than they anticipated as the emperor class Hundun they are assigned to destroy is protected by an even bigger and more powerful Hundun. During the battle, one of their fellow Chrysalises attacks the Vermillion Bird under secret orders from the government to eliminate Zetian and Shimin. Shimin ejects Zetian and Yizhi from the cockpit and pilots the Vermillion Bird alone, the strain of which kills him. Unable to help him without a Chrysalis to pilot, Zetian desperately seeks out the rumored location of the Emperor Qin Zheng with the aid of nomads living in the lost territory, who have revered and guarded his body for centuries. Huaxia long having discovered a cure for the Emperor's disease, she awakens him from his stasis, and bargains with him to cure his illness in exchange for piloting his famed Yellow Dragon. With the Yellow Dragon in her control, she easily defeats the cowering Hunduns and the treacherous Chrysalis pilots who killed Shimin. She then turns on the army and capitol, razing its central command tower, and exposing the truth to the media about the Chrysalis system. Zetian establishes herself as the all powerful new ruler of Huaxia, "Empress Wu", and together with Yizhi (now the inheritor to his father's wealth and media empire), forces the surviving military and political powers to submit.

In the epilogue, Zetian returns to the site of the Hundun battle to retrieve Shimin's body. She reflects on pleading psychic emotions she sensed from the dying Hunduns and learns from other Chrysalis pilots that the Heavenly Council mysteriously appeared and absconded with Shimin's body. She receives an urgent communication from Yizhi, who has discovered a secret government file that reveals the horrifying truth: Huaxia is not on Earth, but actually a colonizing settlement originally from Earth. The Hunduns are the native species of this planet, defending themselves from invading humans, the "scorge of the universe." Before she can share this horrifying information with the public, she receives a direct message from the Heavenly Council. Recognizing her power, they advise that she continue to act in service to them and in exchange, they will revive and return Shimin to her and Yizhi...

• Wu Zetian: the titular "Iron Widow" and co-pilot for the Vermilion Bird who seeks to topple the sexist society of Huaxia after her sister is sacrificed as a pilot. She is extremely passionate about her ultimate goal, and is willing to volunteer as a concubine-pilot and murder the pilot who killed her sister.
• Li Shimin: the "Iron Demon", Wu Zetian's half-Rongdi co-pilot for the Vermilion Bird, a former death row inmate who was spared for having the strongest qi in the history of modern Huaxia. He is alcoholic and has a tendency to lash out to express his anger, however he has a gentler and sensitive side underneath.
• Gao Yizhi: Zetian and Shimin's love interest, the gentle and elegant fifth son of the biggest media mogul in Huaxia who forms a polyamorous relationships with Zetian and Shimin and works to keep them alive against political forces that would have them disposed of. He is a composite character inspired by several lovers of the historic Empress Wu.[8]
• Gao Qiu: The richest media mogul in Huaxia and a corrupt businessman with underground ties to spread his influence. Initially dismissive, he eventually agrees to exclusive and lucrative media contracts to support Zetian and Shimin's public image.
• Sima Yi: A senior strategist and Zetian and Shimin's reluctant handler and trainer.
• An Lushan: Chief strategist for the Sui-Tang frontier. He treacherously seeks to remove Zetian and Shimin from battle by sending them on suicide missions and is later interrogated by the two for his knowledge of the Chrysalis pilot system.
• Dugu Qieluo & Yang Jian: The female and male pilots, respectively, of the White Tiger Chrysalis. Qieluo is cold and hostile toward Zetian's attempts at friendship.
• Ma Xiuying & Zhu Yuanzhang: The female and male pilots, respectively, of the Black Tortoise Chrysalis. Xiuying is initially friendly toward Zetian, offering advice, while Yuanzhang is openly hostile toward Shimin and Qieluo for their Rongdi heritage.
• Emperor Qin Zheng: A legendary ruler of Huaxia and pilot of the Emperor-class Chrysalis the Yellow Dragon. Qin Zheng's spirit pressure is unmatched beyond any pilot in existence. He contracted a disease called flower pox and used the natural qi of the Kunlun Mountains to suspend himself in stasis until a cure could be found. Rumors say he remains there still, but the territory surrounding him has been lost to the Hunduns for thousands of years.
• The Heavenly Council: The mysterious and unseen gods who aid Huaxia. They have never been seen in person or recorded, but they provided humanity with the lost technology to rebuild society after the Hunduns destroyed civilization. Defeated Hundun husks are harvested and given as offerings to the Heavenly Council or reshaped into Chrysalises. The ruling Sages take their orders from the Heavenly Council.

Iron Widow reached #1 in the Young Adult Hardcover category of New York Times Best Sellers in the first week after its release.[9]

The book received generally positive reviews, with commentators noting the queer and feminist themes Linda Codega of Tor.com stated that the "worldbuilding is imaginative and explosive, the strange mix of mecha battles and reimagined characters lighting up the fight scenes and adding a new mythology to historical fantasy" but that the book didn't go "far enough to examine the underlying misogyny and transphobia" the characters faced from the oppressive society.[10] Mimi Koehler of The Nerd Daily, however, found the book "takes a deep dive into the unrelenting and unfair gender roles Wu Zetian's society tries to uphold at any cost and how that not only affects how people treat her but how she, in par, treats others," comparing it to Pacific Rim and The Handmaid's Tale.[11]

In March 2022, Zhao announced that the continuation of the novel, named Heavenly Tyrant, will be released Spring 2023.[12] They earlier hinted on their Tumblr blog that the novel "will be a partial Three Kingdoms retelling".[13]