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Nov. 16th, 2021 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Xiran Jay Zhao's Iron Widow provided an amicably divisive topic of discussion in the book group for which I read it. Approximately 50% of the group found it a really vividly satisfying and empowering read! I, personally, was in the other 50%. But you might not be!
The premise: it's an AU wherein Wu Zetian is a hot murderous teen who pilots a Gundam and is going to destroy the future patriarchy!
[A short pause here to represent the moment when
genarti reminds me that not all mechs are Gundams. Beth, I hear you, and I acknowledge you.]
In the future patriarchy, humanity is under attack by aliens from beyond a Great Wall, and protected by psychically mind-melded teens in giant robots, traditionally a mixed-gender team in which a boy does the active piloting and the girl provides psychic support; unfortunately providing psychic support is very dangerous and the girls often don't survive the experience. Too bad, so sad, but women's lives in this society are so little valued that nobody actually sees this as a problem to be solved.
When Wu Zetian's elder sister is killed by a boy-hero pilot, she decides to sign up for the giant robot army in a suicidal attempt to get Revenge on behalf of her sister and also women generally, much to the dismay of the polite rich boy who loves her! When she then turns out to be a phenomenally powerful pilot, the military promptly pairs her up with their worst best fighter, a convict who murdered his family for Reasons but is too valuable to the military to be executed. This is less to the dismay of the polite rich boy who loves her as it turns out they both find the convict kind of hot. (For those following along with the historical AU, the convict is Li Shimin aka Emperor Taizong and the polite rich boy is a composite of Wu Zetian's various historical extramarital boyfriends.)
All this is well and good so far as it goes; certainly the book leans gleefully into its premise, and certainly I have no objection to an idtastic giant robot rage-and-revenge threesome. However, I could not help noticing that for a book that is so dedicated to protesting the abuse and exploitation of women, it contains remarkably few actual women. Wherever Wu Zetian got her furious feminism from, it's not her mother or grandmother, whom she despises as weak and complicit in their and her own abuse; it's probably not her tragically dead sister, but it's impossible to tell, because Wu Zetian never thinks about her except as an abstract motivating corpse; it's not any other women because Wu Zetian doesn't seem to know any. The first time she has a non-antagonistic conversation with another woman is more than halfway through the book. It happens twice, and doesn't end well.
And, like, aside from a curiosity about what radicalized Wu Zetian not just to her own self-defense but to the defense of Women In The Abstract, it's not that I find this implausible! There is very much a form of feminism that looks like this, in which women in the abstract are worthy of respect, and women in the individual are a disappointment. And I would find that really interesting as the start of a character arc, which perhaps it will be in future books -- but in this particular book, Wu Zetian doesn't really have a character arc so much as a march of destruction. She starts at 100% rage but zero power, and ends at 100% rage and 100% power (plus one cliffhanger moral dilemma.)
For the people I know who loved this book, the spectacle of Wu Zetian demolishing her way through her enemies and wreaking revenge on anyone who ever wronged her and also the patriarchy struck a deep and satisfying chord. For me, it was and remained a challenge to buy in.
I did enjoy the lovingly described celebrity giant robot wedding, though.
The premise: it's an AU wherein Wu Zetian is a hot murderous teen who pilots a Gundam and is going to destroy the future patriarchy!
[A short pause here to represent the moment when
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
In the future patriarchy, humanity is under attack by aliens from beyond a Great Wall, and protected by psychically mind-melded teens in giant robots, traditionally a mixed-gender team in which a boy does the active piloting and the girl provides psychic support; unfortunately providing psychic support is very dangerous and the girls often don't survive the experience. Too bad, so sad, but women's lives in this society are so little valued that nobody actually sees this as a problem to be solved.
When Wu Zetian's elder sister is killed by a boy-hero pilot, she decides to sign up for the giant robot army in a suicidal attempt to get Revenge on behalf of her sister and also women generally, much to the dismay of the polite rich boy who loves her! When she then turns out to be a phenomenally powerful pilot, the military promptly pairs her up with their worst best fighter, a convict who murdered his family for Reasons but is too valuable to the military to be executed. This is less to the dismay of the polite rich boy who loves her as it turns out they both find the convict kind of hot. (For those following along with the historical AU, the convict is Li Shimin aka Emperor Taizong and the polite rich boy is a composite of Wu Zetian's various historical extramarital boyfriends.)
All this is well and good so far as it goes; certainly the book leans gleefully into its premise, and certainly I have no objection to an idtastic giant robot rage-and-revenge threesome. However, I could not help noticing that for a book that is so dedicated to protesting the abuse and exploitation of women, it contains remarkably few actual women. Wherever Wu Zetian got her furious feminism from, it's not her mother or grandmother, whom she despises as weak and complicit in their and her own abuse; it's probably not her tragically dead sister, but it's impossible to tell, because Wu Zetian never thinks about her except as an abstract motivating corpse; it's not any other women because Wu Zetian doesn't seem to know any. The first time she has a non-antagonistic conversation with another woman is more than halfway through the book. It happens twice, and doesn't end well.
And, like, aside from a curiosity about what radicalized Wu Zetian not just to her own self-defense but to the defense of Women In The Abstract, it's not that I find this implausible! There is very much a form of feminism that looks like this, in which women in the abstract are worthy of respect, and women in the individual are a disappointment. And I would find that really interesting as the start of a character arc, which perhaps it will be in future books -- but in this particular book, Wu Zetian doesn't really have a character arc so much as a march of destruction. She starts at 100% rage but zero power, and ends at 100% rage and 100% power (plus one cliffhanger moral dilemma.)
For the people I know who loved this book, the spectacle of Wu Zetian demolishing her way through her enemies and wreaking revenge on anyone who ever wronged her and also the patriarchy struck a deep and satisfying chord. For me, it was and remained a challenge to buy in.
I did enjoy the lovingly described celebrity giant robot wedding, though.
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Date: 2021-11-17 05:24 am (UTC)(Certainly Wu Zeitian didn't do much for women who weren't her -- she was much like Victoria in that regard, and their reigns overlapped enough that I've occasionally contemplated
crossover ficalt history shenanigans -- but surely that is something you'd want to fix in an alternate universe like this?)no subject
Date: 2021-11-21 03:03 am (UTC)(Yeah, I think it would be difficult to say that the real life Wu Zetian had any interest in overthrowing the patriarchy per se, but it's not any more of a change than giving her a giant robot, so why not! But at this point I can't yet tell whether the absence of any real actual solidarity underlying her feminist rhetoric is a deliberate choice or not.)
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Date: 2022-01-06 05:38 pm (UTC)*Muppet-face fistbump of "yeah, Gideon the Ninth was NOT for me either*
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Date: 2021-11-17 12:45 pm (UTC)This novel seemed so mired in misery, and (I agree) not in a particularly compelling way. If I'd reread The Poppy War more recently, I'd compare the two more directly—I think there's a lot of potentially interesting parallels as far as powerful fucked up lower-class girls murdering their way to the top goes—but as it is I can just say that I'm pretty sure The Poppy War knew how horrific it was and I'm not sure that Iron Widow quite did. (That The Poppy War is not a YA book helps with this. That I think Iron Widow can be compared to it says a lot about how far it went anyway, within the bounds of YA.)
I liked the mechs! I liked the fight scenes! I also liked the over-the-top wedding! But the character relationships were working on tropes and not built up as well as I wish they'd been. Even the main trio's romance felt gestured at more than truly established/justified, which is a shame considering how much page-time they had.
but hey canon polyamory in a YA novel; that's nice to see at least!
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:09 am (UTC)(The Poppy War also came to mind for me as a comparison, and I agree with your analysis: both are deeply embedded in rage and violence but The Poppy War is wielding those tools with much self-awareness the entire time than I think Iron Widow is.)
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Date: 2021-11-21 01:00 pm (UTC)(also, as you say in a bunch of other comments: what if there were more narratively important women! I also want that!)
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Date: 2021-11-17 02:54 pm (UTC)The last absolutely bonkers forty pages or so also left me a bit ???? Maybe the pacing will make sense when there’s a sequel (I also didn’t realise this was going to be a book with a sequel, so I was miffed about that when I got to the end) but as it is I’m just baffled, though I did kind of of enjoy Wu Zetian’s utter destruction of, um, everything, at the end, which as you say wasn’t so much a character arc for Wu Zetian but did also feel very in-character. I hope that manages to turn into a character arc in the next book.
I did enjoy all the mecha fighting and loved the middle bit of building their own mythology and getting politically married, and honestly I could have done with a lot more of that middle section and all the reluctant politicking and image building. The more I think about it the more I kind of think I maybe wanted the not-YA version of this book? I was also quite astounded that this was YA, given how much graphic violence there is. I mean, I know The Hunger Games is YA and about literal children murdering each other, but there was a lot of very visceral violence in Iron Widow.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:25 am (UTC)My understanding also is that the first version of this book was not YA, but then it sold as YA, and the whole book club also was really interested in what the not-YA version looked like! I do think more pagecount and more room for nuance could have solved a lot of the issues I had with it.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:48 pm (UTC)Maybe a non YA version of this book would have been allowed to be longer and have a slightly slower pace to explore everything a bit more? But I’m not sure that that would have necessarily changed the writing of Wu Zetian’s feminism, which is consistent and unflinching throughout - I really do hope that’s something that gets examined with more nuance in the next book. Maybe there will be more women in it! I could also definitely have done with the last thirty pages of the book being twice as long, because just so much happens there.
I also just wanted to say I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s thoughts here! I apparently really miss book discussions.
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Date: 2021-11-17 03:42 pm (UTC)I have a library hold on this, still several weeks out. I suspect it's the sort of book best read with Chinese fantasy webnovel googles on, rather than western YA googles. Speaking of which, have you met It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future? There's definite genre-element similarities there.
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Date: 2021-11-18 06:32 am (UTC)That is such a good title, I would like you to tell me about this book even if I never get around to reading it.
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Date: 2021-11-18 03:28 pm (UTC)The genre is SF/xianxia with mecha.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:29 am (UTC)I also have not encountered It's Not Easy To Be a Man After Trevelling To the Future but it definitely sounds relevant to my interests. >.> Thank you for the rec!
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Date: 2021-11-17 05:20 pm (UTC)I am pleased that something that sounds like such a bisexual premise is getting read so widely!
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-17 05:23 pm (UTC)Wu Zetian doesn't really have a character arc so much as a march of destruction
Hah, yes, accurate.
[A short pause here to represent the moment when [personal profile] genarti reminds me that not all mechs are Gundams. Beth, I hear you, and I acknowledge you.]
I too called them Gundams immediately, then thought that since they need two people as pilots I should rather compare them to the robots from Pacific Rim but magical; but the simple fact that it took me a few seconds to recall what the robots from Pacific Rim were even called made me change my mind again, Gundams it is.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:39 am (UTC)lololol yes the first time I called the Gundams Beth IMMEDIATELY said "they are not Gundams, they're Jaegers! Gundams never have two pilots!" This is absolutely correct and I freely admit my error, and yet I cannot stop.
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Date: 2021-11-17 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2021-11-17 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-19 02:23 am (UTC)Anyway, I shared a lot of Becca's mixed feelings about Wu Zetian's rage/revenge rampage and the lack of actual women as characters and so on, not to mention the wild left turn of the ending, but I did really enjoy all the mecha piloting and dramatically aesthetic mecha imagery.
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Date: 2021-11-29 08:26 pm (UTC)What is the wild left turn of the ending?
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Date: 2021-12-12 04:58 am (UTC)Fb, guvf gnxrf cynpr ba n cynarg orfrg ol na nyvra fcrpvrf pnyyrq gur Uhaqha; uhznaf svtug gurz va gurfr zrpun, naq nyfb hfr gurve pnencnprf gb ohvyq gurve zrpun. Jh Mrgvna'f snzvyl'f ubzrynaq jnf ybfg gb gur Uhaqha ybat ntb, yrtraqnel urebrf onggyrq gurz, rgp. Nyfb, gurer ner zlfgrevbhf tbqf hc va gur fxl fbzrjurer, jub gnxr gevohgr bs Uhaqha pnencnprf naq bgure fhccyvrf naq lbhat jbzra naq fb sbegu, naq tenag grpuabybtl naq oyhrcevagf naq fghss, fbzrgvzrf, ng gurve juvz.
Bire gur pbhefr bs gur obbx, gurer ner tenqhnyyl ohvyg-hc uvagf gung znlor gur Uhaqha qvqa'g fgneg guvf jne; znlor gur uhznaf vainqrq gur Uhaqha'f ynaq, naq ner npghnyyl gur pbybavmref/vainqref urer.
Ng gur raq bs gur obbx, gurl znxr n znffvir nggnpx ba gur Uhaqha, juvpu vvep Jh Mrgvna rg ny ner ntnvafg ohg cbyvgvpnyyl znarhirerq vagb orvat cneg bs. Pbaivpg-oblsevraq trgf xvyyrq va onggyr naq Jh Mrgvna tbrf ba n znffvir entr-shryrq enzcntr ntnvafg obgu Uhaqhaf naq nyyvrf jub'ir orgenlrq ure, vapyhqvat jnxvat hc n yrtraqnel ureb sebz fgnfvf gb cnegare jvgu uvz sbe shegure enzcntvat. Naq gura! Va gur ynfg, yvxr, guerr cntrf! Vg gheaf bhg gung guvf jnf qrsvavgryl bevtvanyyl gur Uhaqha'f cynarg! Uhznaf unir orra fynhtugrevat gurz sbe trarengvbaf naq gurl'er whfg gelvat gb qrsraq gurzfryirf! Nyfb gur tbqf ner uhznaf ba n fcnprfuvc! Gurl'ir orra jngpuvat bire rirelguvat nyy guvf gvzr naq znavchyngvat vg gb znxr fher gur jne naq gevohgr pbagvahr! Nyfb nyfb, pbaivpg-oblsevraq vf nyvir naq ba uvtu-grpu yvsr fhccbeg hc ba gurve fcnprfuvc, naq gurl'yy xvyy uvz vs fur gryyf nalbar nobhg nal bs guvf! BXNL RAQ OLR, QVQ JR ZRAGVBA GURER'YY OR N FRDHRY. (V unq abg, va snpg, ernyvmrq gung guvf jnf abg n fgnaqnybar, be ng yrnfg n fgnaqnybar jvgu frdhry cbgragvny, ng nal cbvag orsber gur ynfg cntr.)
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Date: 2021-12-12 05:51 am (UTC)Whaha!
At least when you start The Riddle-Master of Hed, it tells you it's the first of a trilogy.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-17 10:21 pm (UTC)I zipped through the first part then had to convince myself to finish it as I didn't really care. I found reading through the Goodreads' reviews fascinating to see the division and this would be a great book for a book club.
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Date: 2021-11-18 01:53 am (UTC)I wonder if that's an increasingly common thing nowadays? A lot of YA authors seem to come up on social media (I think Chloe Gong also credited her TikTok as being instrumental in her publication journey) and it seems like maybe the virality to bestseller pipeline means that authors miss the development period that they might have had otherwise.
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Date: 2021-11-21 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-18 12:32 am (UTC)Too bad, so sad, but women's lives in this society are so little valued that nobody actually sees this as a problem to be solved
That struck me roughly one-third through the book. And it is just so full of "all women are bullied" - and even if it is meant to depict an extremely patriarchal and sexist society, I'd expect to see a few descriptions of some pushback (other than from the protagonist). So that part got a bit tiresome, but luckily there's more mecha to take my mind off it.
There is very much a form of feminism that looks like this, in which women in the abstract are worthy of respect, and women in the individual are a disappointment.
Yup, that happened. Only the dead sister is saintly.
Still, I enjoyed the book a lot, even the parts that I felt were tropey and I'd be very interested in the sequel.
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Date: 2021-11-21 04:01 am (UTC)I'll be very curious to hear about the sequel when it comes out!
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Date: 2021-11-18 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-21 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 10:23 pm (UTC)She is CORRECT and I am appalled you would make this egregious error
I did enjoy the lovingly described celebrity giant robot wedding, though.
Getting images of Jupiter Ascending in my head.
It's sad there's no other women in this book because we have so many examples of intelligent women navigating the patriarchy to amass power without being in an explicitly powerful role. Heck, the harem politics are a whole genre in Chinese fiction that just follow the women scheming and trying to get on top. I would've loved to have seen that applied to this book without just Women Suffering All The Time if they're not a badass pilot. I'm still intrigued enough to get it from the library as I am easily swayed buy big robots punching each other, cool set pieces, and vengeance.
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Date: 2021-12-27 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-12-27 01:52 pm (UTC)Your criticisms are so fascinating, because I definitely found them a feature rather than a bug. There's a line in there about Wu Zetian's bisexuality where she says something like she's admired both women and men, and I was just like, lol, no, you have literally never admired a woman in your life. But for me that alienation was part of what makes her so compelling, and what made the bleakness of her rage so easy to buy into.
I think it also helped that I wasn't sold this as a feminism book, and while reading it, it didn't occur to me that she was fighting the patriarchy -- I think I would have been disappointed if that was what I was hoping for. I mean, don't get me wrong, I noticed there was violent structural sexism! I just saw it as WZT vs EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING FUCK YOU against a background of patriarchy, rather than WZT vs patriarchy in particular.
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Date: 2021-12-27 07:09 pm (UTC)For me, it's not so much that I was hoping for WZT to fight the patriarchy, per se, as that I kept getting thrown when she would, like, challenge one of the pilots for all his murders of nameless girls as if that was a reason for her rampage, rather than personal revenge/drive for power; I couldn't tell if the author meant for me to take it at face value or not, or if I could read it as the lie she's telling herself to justify her actions. If the latter had been more clearly the case for me, I think I would have enjoyed the book more, so I think you are most likely reading it as it's meant to be read!
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Date: 2022-01-06 05:36 pm (UTC)As someone for whom the following is true
For the people I know who loved this book, the spectacle of Wu Zetian demolishing her way through her enemies and wreaking revenge on anyone who ever wronged her and also the patriarchy struck a deep and satisfying chord.
I am 200% in agreement. It most deffo was INCREDIBLY SATISFYING to see Wu Zetian channel her anger into actions. NGL, I did approached the book with a lot of wariness because it'd been so hyped on BookTwitter and, most of the time, that kind of OTTness usually means that the book won't click to me.
That said, yeah, the feminism in the book was almost-but-not-completely-there. I do remember wondering where were Wu Zetian's female friends and why she wasn't interacting with many women in the story. OTOH, I think that, at the time, I know I rationalized it as "she's so focused on her mission, she doesn't have time to make friends". Which looking back is on me for not questioning that deeper.
If anything, the one thing that did niggled at me was the YA angle. It wasn't until after I finished the book that I'd learned it'd originally been an adult novel. NGL, I'm upset that the author decided to give it a YA spin.
Anyways, thank you once again for the review. It's really good to see what didn't work for others for what was my fave 2021 book. :D