![]() Shimin and Zetian torture a high-ranking official, who confesses that girls are just as likely to have strong spirit pressure as boys, but the system is rigged to ensure the survival of the male pilot.ĭuring a counterattack in the lost territory, another Chrysalis attempts to kill them under secret orders from the government. The three suspect that the Chrysalis system is biased toward the survival of the male pilots. Yizhi, Shimin, and Zetian secretly enter a polyamorous relationship.Īfter a heavily televised battle where Yizhi gives his qi to help them defeat a massive Hundun, Yizhi joins them in the Chrysalis. Yizhi helps Shimin break his addiction, and Zetian and Yizhi secretly rekindle their love. When they are relocated to the capitol, Yizhi pulls strings to be able to assist their training, in an effort to keep Zetian alive. Though their relationship starts as a show for the public, the two fall in love. Zetian discovers that Shimin is actually a gentle artist who murdered his family for gang raping a young woman and that the army forced his alcohol addiction to control him. She and Shimin are a Balanced Match, and their mental bond causes them to learn more about each other. To keep her under control, the army pairs her with their strongest male pilot: the conscripted criminal Li Shimin. ![]() ![]() Feared, but conscripted, she resolves to destroy the Chrysalis system and its reliance on the sacrifice of female pilots. Her spirit pressure now registers at extraordinarily high levels. Her survival has her branded a dangerous and rare "Iron Widow". While piloting, Zetian sees his memories of the many girls he's abused. Zetian successfully arranges to be paired with her sister's co-pilot, Yang Guang. Despite being in love with a wealthy childhood friend, Gao Yizhi, she resolves to avenge her sister even if it will likely mean her death. She resents her uncaring family, who only value their daughters for the money their deaths as concubines will fetch them. Wu Zetian enlists as a concubine to avenge her older sister, who died after having enlisted but meeting her unexplained death before she ever got to co-pilot a Chrysalis. This location was lost to Hunduns centuries ago. ![]() The strongest male pilot in history was the legendary emperor Qin Zheng, rumored to be frozen in stasis within his Chrysalis, the Yellow Dragon, to stave off an illness until a cure could be found. Male-female pairings that don't risk the concubine's death are called Balanced Matches, but are rare and treated as celebrity marriages. Treated like celebrities by the media and adoring public, male pilots rely on "concubines", female pilots who supply them with additional qi at the cost of their own lives. Humans have learned to harvest the bodies of defeated Hunduns to create giant fighting mechas, called Chrysalises.Ĭhrysalises are piloted by young men with high levels of spirit pressure who can release their qi, following the five classical Asian elements. ![]() Aided by mysterious and unseen gods (the Heavenly Council), humanity has recovered from a devastating attack ages ago that forced civilization to rebuild. The nation of Huaxia, a futuristic reimagining of Medieval China, is constantly under attack by alien creatures ( Hunduns). In particular, Zhao in a Twitter thread said the story was written partly in response to their disappointment in the direction DARLING in the FRANXX took in its later episodes. 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?" Numerous anime shows, such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Digimon, and Attack on Titan served as inspiration for Iron Widow. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Zhao stated that "there's no other woman in Chinese history who had a rise through the harem as iconic as hers. Iron Widow, Zhao's debut novel, was released on September 21, 2021. Rock the Boat, the children's imprint of Oneworld Publications, acquired the UK rights in May 2021. In March 2020, Xiran Jay Zhao signed a two-book deal with Penguin Teen Canada for a reimagining of the rise of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China who ruled during the late 600s. It won the 2021 BSFA Award for "Best Book for Younger Readers" and has been nominated for two 2022 Locus Awards and the 2022 Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book. Iron Widow is a New York Times Best Seller as of July 2022, the book has remained on the list for 34 weeks. The novel is a mecha reimagining of the rise of China’s first and only female Emperor Wu Zetian set in the nation of Huaxia, a futuristic reinterpretation of Medieval China. Iron Widow is a 2021 young adult science fantasy novel by Canadian writer Xiran Jay Zhao. ![]()
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