Review: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

Blurb:

Zetian must balance dangerous politics with a new quest for vengeance in the sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller Iron Widow.

Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself on the seat of power in Huaxia, but she has also learned that her world is not as it seems. Revelations about an enemy who dangles one of her loved ones as a hostage force Zetian to share power with a dangerous man she cannot simply depose. Despite their mutual dislike and distrust, the two must work together to take down their common enemy and stoke a revolution against the systems of exploitation that plague their world.

However, power is not so easy to wield once seized, and a revolution is not so easy to control once unleashed. As Huaxia’s former elites strike back and the common people’s fervor for justice turns bloody and paranoid, can Zetian remain a fair and just ruler? Or will she be forced to rely on fear and violence and succumb to her darker instincts in her quest for vengeance and liberation?

Review:

I finished Iron Widow and sat facing the wall like I’d been slapped. Then, like any good reader that’s been through emotional instability with a book,  I waited for the sequel with all the excitement of the quaker parrot I am in my soul. Having now finished Heavenly Tyrant, my official response is ‘Oof’. It’s a good ‘oof’. Like Xiran Jay Zhao took me on another unrestrained emotional rollercoaster and I didn’t always know what was happening but I enjoyed the ride.

If you need a quick recap, which will include spoilers if you haven’t read Iron Widow, I don’t think I can say it better than Wu Zetian does herself:

It started with wanting to kill one boy in revenge. Then I was throwing soldiers out of the Vermilion Bird’s cockpit. Torturing An Lushan to death. Squashing Xiuying and Zhu Yuanzhang in the Black Tortoise. Smashing the Kaihuang watchtower. Crushing the Palace of Sages, with my family in it.

So what happens after all that, when someone as driven for power and change as Wu Zetian reawakens an emperor of legend, Qin Zheng? 575 pages of me inhumanly screeching. I apologise to my cats for this and no one else. 

I thought initially I would hate Qin Zheng, if for nothing else than breaking up my faves Zetian and Yizhi - the why works really well, don’t worry about it. In the end, I actually really loved his character. And he had some valid points about education, knowledge, equality and equity, officials shouldn’t be comfortable in their power and ‘a society that values birthright over merit is fundamentally broken and nonsensical.’ Cancelling all medical and educational debt? Hold on, hold on, let’s hear the emperor out. 

Qin Zheng is also really complicated. For all he believes in burning down the system of ‘the future’, which is present day for everyone else, he enacts some intense policies. Like snitching on your friends and family for challenging his revolution, lest you end up in prison as well. What’s more is that he knows from his training things that really change how we understand the giant mecha robots of this world. That said, there is less giant mecha robot fighting compared to Iron Widow but when it happens it is so, so, so good. So what does that mean in context? Zetian has an equal force to challenge her and learn from. 

I think we still get the impulsive, fierce, powerful and sometimes soft-touched Zetian throughout but she seems to pick her moments more now. Does that mean her actions are more well thought out? Nnnnnnnnot necessarily. Especially with the amount of people still calling for her head, ‘cause, you know….everything she did before. 

I’ve already said that Qin Zheng being there breaks up Zetian and Yizhi. So if you’re going into this hoping for their love triangle to just be a little blurry while Shimin is doing his body suspended in a glass tank with the gods thing (what a sentence, right?!), you are going to be disappointed. I would say you are going to be downright MAD at certain points. You might even go through phases of the book wondering who will kill Yizhi first in his back and forth of bad decisions. It’s a good question and I’m still wondering this myself.

While we’re all figuring that out, Zetian is surrounded by some excellent side characters. (Qin Zheng just gets regular side characters.) Qieluo who we know from Iron Widow, Shangguan Wan’er, Gao Taiping and a few others who were immensely interesting and I would have loved to have more of but if I say anything else I will spoil so much. Wan’er and Taiping have a weird love/hate thing going on from a gay club they first met at, and I’m definitely not starting to wonder if that’s just a Gao family trait, but good for them. More power to them. Qieluo was great to see again and see more of in terms of her personality, her drive, her whole self as more than just this incredible copilot from Iron Widow. There is also [Redacted] from [Redacted] which is going to be sooooo interesting to see how they adjust in the world in whatever the next book is. 

‘Next book?’ Yep! There’s going to be a third book. It’s not a duology which means I can live with that ending but if I could have the next book asap that’d be so good.

Heavenly Tyrant was Xiran coming back to say ‘Eat the rich, destroy the patriarchy and prepare for my THEY-triarchy’. Past, present and future me is here for all of it. There were moments of brilliant banter, reflection, growth, cunning, and scheming. Characters I loved that I hated in moments and characters I hated that I now love. And of course commentary throughout on real issues, classism, economy, education, gender and activism that you’d expect from an author who absolutely practices what they preach. Please, Xiran, have mercy on the problematic emperor from the past, he’s doing his best now. Zetian is also doing her best so please be nice…nicer? Sima Yi is still kind of human sludge so he can go in the bin I guess.