Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

70 reviews

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was much slower than Iron Widow, not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, it felt like a very natural sequence of events coming after the events ending the last book.

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emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

It’s far more political than the first book which is interesting to me but may not be to everyone who liked the first one. 

Also, if you really enjoyed the thruple subplot of book one… you’re not in for a good time.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous emotional inspiring tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes

It's not often that a sequel surpasses the original story, but Heavenly Tyrant does this with maniacal fury and whole-hearted compassion at the same time. This book broke me, built me anew, and broke me again. A beautiful story of revolution and the conflicts that come with it, this is much more than an enemies-to-lovers romance. This book has easy-to-understand explanations of communist theory and discusses feminist revolution as well. It discusses racism, feminism, classism, ableism, homophobia and even ageism. I don't know of the last time a book felt like it really changed me the way this did. Cannot recommend enough.

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

oh my fucking GOD!!!!!! this was. wow. genuinely wow. i savoured the fuck out of this book because i knew i would need more as soon as it finished it (and i do) and the slower-pace really helped with that. it was also a bit tough to read at times, since reading is largely an escape for me and this has many, many parallels to our current political landscape (and all at certain points in history, of course).

there is so much to say about this. while i knew from the start of the "mystery" of the gods and huaxia exactly what the reveal would be, it still felt really triumphant to get to that point when it was revealed. i loved that this book delved so much deeper into the world and lore, and i look forward to seeing the rest of the planet and beyond develop in the next instalment.

i liked the way power and the different dynamics that come from acquiring different levels of power were portrayed. while a lot of this was accelerated progress and required a decent amount of suspending disbelief (it is sci-fi, after all), i thoroughly enjoyed reading this entire book. i'm so excited to see where this goes next! 

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dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I love this author, love iron widow, love Zetian, hated about 400 pages of this book. 
Shimin is the only man left in this universe i don't hate and he was only on about 5 pages of the book, at the end, after being mutilated and tortured.
Will probably read the sequel 🤷🏼

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense slow-paced

Overall, I liked this. The beginning and end were the best organized, in my opinion. The middle really dragged. It’s not that I don’t like communist theory, not to mention communist theory inserted into fiction. I do! But tbh I’m here for the giant robot fights. 

The political range in the first book is a lot more simplistic. I get the sense that, for this book, the author had to include a lot of detail for people to understand, but it just didn’t feel like organic conversation a lot of the time. And it just went on for so long, I was like, ok we get it already!! I think a lot of the detail of the middle of the book could have been cut and it would still make sense.

Even so, I am enchanted by the world building in both this book and its predecessor. I like how the characters are evil, petty, anxious, vengeful, … just very colorful and memorable. I look forward to the third book!

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