Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao was a delight and I’m so happy that I got to read the ARC! For the rest of y’all, fear not! It’s on Netgalley rn as a “read now” for a limited time so you can experience the glorious Wu Zetian and her husbands for yourselves
Hello it’s time for Wu Zetian with fox ear hair because I thought it would be fun to lean into that hulijing persona. We love a girlboss and her supportive husband ❤️
Wu Zetian and Li Shimin from Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao ❤️
Btw I absolutely need to do one with Yizhi because he’s bae and you know what they say, the triangle is the strongest shape
Hello it’s time for Wu Zetian with fox ear hair because I thought it would be fun to lean into that hulijing persona. We love a girlboss and her supportive husband ❤️
Wu Zetian and Li Shimin from Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao ❤️
Btw I absolutely need to do one with Yizhi because he’s bae and you know what they say, the triangle is the strongest shape
I just finished reading Iron Widow, and if Ziran Jay Zhao ever sees this, I need a sequel immediately.
Everything about this book is amazing. The way the protagonist repeatedly chooses violence, and how this isn’t treated as a failure. The constant subversion of expectations for nearly every character. The plots twists on top of plot twists as the protagonist learns more about her world. The unapologetic feminism that runs through the whole story. The way a world somewhere between Pacific Rim and the Handmaid’s Tale shouldn’t be this engrossing, but definitely is.
Anyway, go read Iron Widow, so we can all sulk that the sequel isn’t out yet together!
“You can either let this journey crush you, or let it transform you into someone stronger.”
A scene from the newly-released, New-York-Times-bestselling (?!) book Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, art by 最后的L and water effects by me!
Honestly,Zachary Ying is a book I didn’t think I’d have the strength to write. The concept is very wild and wacky, yes—the First Emperor of China possessing a young Chinese American boy’s AR gaming headset and compelling him on a journey across China to heist magical artifacts—but writing the story required me to dig deep into my complicated relationship with my heritage.
When I immigrated to Canada in 6th grade, I spent a year as the only Asian kid in the school of a small town. In that one year, I became self-conscious of all sorts of things that didn’t seem to matter before: the way I looked, the way I spoke, the clothes I wore, the media I liked. The white kids wouldn’t insult me outright, but they’d ask me questions that made me embarrassed of my differences from them. I felt backward, alien. The feelings of isolation and rejection I experienced took me many, many years to unpack. It’s been a long journey, learning to love myself again, and I drew much strength from stories in Chinese history to do so.
However, as the years passed, I’ve also watched in horror as the government of China became increasingly authoritarian, cracking down on dissent and committing genocidal atrocities against minority ethnic groups, of which I belong to one myself. Being Chinese has become so painfully political. Pride in Chinese culture is no longer as simple as that, but could accidentally play into the Chinese government’s use of traditional culture as propaganda. Yet on another hand, there’s the necessity of demystifying and defending Chinese culture to combat anti-Chinese racism. Many diaspora like myself are caught in the crosshairs, struggling to find the balance. But what I firmly believe is that traditional Chinese culture and history don’t belong to the Chinese government. It belongs to the Chinese people, both native and diaspora. If we distance ourselves from our heritage specifically because of the Chinese government, that’s letting them win, validating their claim to be the one true representative of Chinese culture when that is absolutely not the case.
Through Zack’s journey in this book, I wanted to engage with the complexities of Chinese identity, but I also want to have fun. This book remains a love letter to my 12-year-old self, taking inspiration from everything I love—anime, video games, sci-fi, and of course, Chinese history and myths. You’ll find appearances by real figures from said history and myths, wielding magic inspired by their legends, along with many famous Chinese artifacts.
If any of that sounds fun to you too, especially if you like Percy Jackson or Yugioh, I really think you’d like this book as well ✌ You can find out where to get it at ZacharyYing.com!
GRYFFINDOR: “I don’t need to blink. Don’t need to breathe. A whirlwind could come howling in, and I wouldn’t budge. An earthquake could shake the ground, and I wouldn’t teeter. I am the force that quakes the earth.” –Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow)
“You can either let this journey crush you, or let it transform you into someone stronger.”
A scene from the newly-released, New-York-Times-bestselling (?!) book Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor, art by 最后的L and water effects by me!
Honestly,Zachary Ying is a book I didn’t think I’d have the strength to write. The concept is very wild and wacky, yes—the First Emperor of China possessing a young Chinese American boy’s AR gaming headset and compelling him on a journey across China to heist magical artifacts—but writing the story required me to dig deep into my complicated relationship with my heritage.
When I immigrated to Canada in 6th grade, I spent a year as the only Asian kid in the school of a small town. In that one year, I became self-conscious of all sorts of things that didn’t seem to matter before: the way I looked, the way I spoke, the clothes I wore, the media I liked. The white kids wouldn’t insult me outright, but they’d ask me questions that made me embarrassed of my differences from them. I felt backward, alien. The feelings of isolation and rejection I experienced took me many, many years to unpack. It’s been a long journey, learning to love myself again, and I drew much strength from stories in Chinese history to do so.
However, as the years passed, I’ve also watched in horror as the government of China became increasingly authoritarian, cracking down on dissent and committing genocidal atrocities against minority ethnic groups, of which I belong to one myself. Being Chinese has become so painfully political. Pride in Chinese culture is no longer as simple as that, but could accidentally play into the Chinese government’s use of traditional culture as propaganda. Yet on another hand, there’s the necessity of demystifying and defending Chinese culture to combat anti-Chinese racism. Many diaspora like myself are caught in the crosshairs, struggling to find the balance. But what I firmly believe is that traditional Chinese culture and history don’t belong to the Chinese government. It belongs to the Chinese people, both native and diaspora. If we distance ourselves from our heritage specifically because of the Chinese government, that’s letting them win, validating their claim to be the one true representative of Chinese culture when that is absolutely not the case.
Through Zack’s journey in this book, I wanted to engage with the complexities of Chinese identity, but I also want to have fun. This book remains a love letter to my 12-year-old self, taking inspiration from everything I love—anime, video games, sci-fi, and of course, Chinese history and myths. You’ll find appearances by real figures from said history and myths, wielding magic inspired by their legends, along with many famous Chinese artifacts.
If any of that sounds fun to you too, especially if you like Percy Jackson or Yugioh, I really think you’d like this book as well ✌ You can find out where to get it at ZacharyYing.com!
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.
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.
Rating:★★★★½
Iron Widow was my first 5 star read of books new to me this year, and there are so many reasons to love it. The character depth is incredible, and I love the dynamics between all of the different characters, particularly Zetian, Yizhi and Li Shimin. There is so much character development and growth throughout the narrative – the plot is interesting and I love watching how the characters react to everything. It’s incredibly amusing, and I really connected to the writing almost immediately, so much so that I had to force myself to slow down to read. And I will definitely have to buy Iron Widow so I can re-read it.
I absolutely adore Zetian and she’s such a refreshing character, because I am sick of protagonists that are never allowed to ‘stoop’ to the level of the villians. I love that she’s full of vengeance and willing to do whatever it takes, even when that means doing some dark things to people. She’s genuinely such a well-rounded character and it’s so easy to feel a connection with her and her circumstances. Zetian gets things done. I love how she uses people and their reactions and emotions to her advantage. She is a powerful badass.
The polyamorous relationship that develops between Zetian, Yizhi and Li Shimin is beautiful and such a significant aspect of the novel. On first look, Zetian and Li Shimin are much more similar people and have similar approaches. However, it becomes clear that Yizhi belongs with them and not only supports their efforts, but is also willing to get his hands dirty.
So much of Iron Widow focuses on the structural oppression of women in this world, and the ways in which Zetian fights it after the murder of her older sister. She not only sets her sights on completely destroying the murderer, when she finds herself in a powerful position she uses that power to further her cause and fight against this oppression. It’s something she’s tried to fight her whole life, starting with the ways in which her family treated her because she’s female. She refuses to be shamed or silenced, and when someone attempts to hold something over her, she lets it go so she won’t have to let go of her power.
But what’s also important is that she learns that not every woman has the power to fight back, and it’s not on the victims to stand up and fight, particularly when it can make their situation worse. Zetian also importantly learns that all women are different, and will not necessarily stand up for each other. In fact, some women will actively fight against the cause for all women in order to maintain the power they currently have.
In terms of what didn’t quite work for me, I found it difficult getting into the technical side of the world-building, especially as Iron Widow dives right into it without explaining anything. Towards the end of the novel, particularly during the final battle, I did find myself drifting. It didn’t help that the battle also felt a little off pace.
The big plot twist at the end of Iron Widow was obvious to me based on earlier foreshadowing and comments made by certain characters. It’s also the kind of twist I’ve seen before, but I am interested to see how it will affect the characters in the next book.
Warnings: violence & abuse, suicide ideation, sexual assault, alcohol addiction, torture, sexual assault/misogyny, racism, body modifications
(Please do not screenshot this to share on Twitter because I don’t want this to become a Whole Thing there)
(Nvm, decided to go public on Twitter about this after all. So feel free to share this.)
Turns out my publisher got a JAPANESE VOICE ACTOR to narrate the audiobook, which means all the Mandarin is pronounced wrong. I didn’t discover this until several days after the audiobook went on sale because they never sent me a sample of the VA reading any Mandarin or a preview of the audiobook before it was finished.
I’m pretty annoyed by this because when my publisher first sent me a list of four candidates to choose from, I suspected pretty quickly that they were all either Japanese or Korean, so I asked if any of them were native Mandarin speakers because there’s a LOT of Mandarin in the book so that’s rather important. My publisher assured me they can all handle Mandarin, so I just chose the voice that seemed most suitable for Zack. It did give me pause that that VA’s bio said they were born in Tokyo, but I thought maybe the VA was Chinese-Japanese or something because my publisher wouldn’t lie to me, right?
Well. Turns out they did. Or SOMEONE in the production chain lied, because the final product was clearly done by a Japanese person who could not speak Mandarin. When I raised the issue to my publisher, they said it was the VA’s team that assured them they could handle Mandarin (they definitely cannot). Mandarin is a tonal language, so if you don’t hit the tone right you are saying something completely different. It can’t be half-assed. I even painstakingly sent my publisher a list and a recording of every Mandarin term or phrase in the book, organized by page, but clearly no one involved in production could differentiate the tones because they all came out wrong.
Now my publisher is working on finding an actual Mandarin speaker to rerecord the whole audiobook and I’m just so frustrated because this could’ve been avoided so easily if they’d taken my concern seriously from the start. Or like…didn’t suggest Japanese and Korean VAs for my very Chinese book. Publishers have a LOT of work to do beyond presenting surface-level diversity, smh.
They took the audiobook down from retailers for a bit but I told them it can stay up for now as long as the buyers can automatically get the new version later. I dolike the VA’s performance, it’s just a shame about the Mandarin.
If you’re wondering whether to get the Zachary Ying audiobook after finding out about this…Eh. It’s your choice. Just know that in the current version, all the Mandarin is wrong.
Yeah, I’m not surprised about this shitty situation, and I’m glad Xiran is speaking out.
Disclaimer: I love the actress who narrated A CURSE OF ROSES. Rebecca is great and did a great job. So it worked out well for me. However…
Back when ACOR got audio, I had 5 samples to choose from. Four actresses were of Brazilian descent, and one was of Colombian descent. The Brazilians I get (at least they still speak Portuguese, albeit with a different accent and some idiom differences here and there), but the Colombian actress just sent me. It wasn’t that she was a bad actress, it was just that she read every Portuguese word like it was Spanish. Still, it’s typical of people who don’t speak a language (particularly people who only speak English) to put everything else in the same basket. It’s why you see Portuguese or Spanish actors playing South Americans and studios shrugging it off when people point out that maybe you should get, idk, an actual Colombian actor to play Pablo Escobar than a Brazilian actor. As good an actor as Wagner Moura is, you could tell his Colombian accent wasn’t natural.
Anyway, audiobook thing: I asked for European Portuguese actors and was promptly ignored. I also didn’t get to listen to the audiobook before it was released–I still haven’t listened to the audiobook because no one sent me a copy and I don’t have €40 lying around to buy a copy of my own book in audio.
All I have to go by the audiobook’s quality is the opinions of other people who read it. And I was nervous when I had to provide audio readings of so many Portuguese words, because a native speaker shouldn’t be needing them.
Fortunately for me, things ended up working out, and all the Portuguese people who listened to the book in audio told me the Portuguese was good. And for that, I am lucky. Because I wouldn’t be having an audio re-release should the Portuguese have been atrocious on account of the book being small.
All these things could be avoided if publishers let authors have more input during the process. Now, they have to re-record a whole-ass book because they couldn’t do their due diligence in the first version. They couldn’t even listen to the author when they said Mandarin is tonal and you need someone who speaks it properly. They went right ahead and “surely all Asian languages are the same!” and booked a Japanese VA like they’re interchangeable.
The US needs to realize other nationalities and languages aren’t a one-size-fits all, and anyway, this annoys me. Maybe listen to your authors when they ask for a narrator of a certain nationality, or at least, when they ask for someone who’s fully fluent in a language instead of making this a shitty situation for all involved.
NGL I pirated my own audiobook because my publisher was dragging its ass on giving me a promo code and I refused to GIVE them money for my own story LOOOOOL
But yeah after I went public about this on Twitter I’ve had so many authors come into my DMs about their own horror stories with their audiobooks or the proofreading of their non-English language (one had their Mexican Spanish proofread by a European Spanish speaker who messed it all up??). Publishers get lazy when it comes to finding speakers of the proper language / dialect and the quality suffers in the end.
I’ve been meaning to read Iron Widowby@xiranjayzhao since it came out, and finally had an opportunity. So glad I took it off my to-read shelf!
While marketed as YA it easily appeals to adults as well. It’s science fiction (think Pacific Rim jaegers) with a massive infusion of traditional Chinese culture and mythology, shades of the Hunger Games (without be remotely like the Hunger Games), and a romance that does not fit into the hetero-normative monogamous box. Another bonus is that it includes a variety of disabilities (physical, chemical abuse, and PTSD) without being ableist or unrealistic. As a disabled person, this brings me joy.
There are a number of reviews that grump about a lack of world building, and they would be grossly mistaken. However, if you are accustomed to only Western world-building shorthand, you may miss the significant East-Asian world building that is very much present. This is a world as diverse as China (which currently recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups), with the same kinds of inter-clan bias and strife that you will find in China’s history.
This is brilliantly written, and I’m very much looking forward to Zhao’s future books.
