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]

• 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.
• Li Shimin: the "Iron Demon", Wu Zetian's co-pilot for the Vermilion Bird, a former death row inmate who was spared for having the strongest qi in the history of Huaxia.
• Gao Yizhi: Zetian and Shimin's love interest, the fifth son of the biggest media mogul in Huaxia who forms a polyandrous relationship with Zetian and Shimin.

Iron Widow reached #1 in the Young Adult Hardcover category of New York Times Best Sellers in the first week after its release.[8]

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.[9] 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.[10]