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A review by sgyawriter
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
2.0
Overall, I enjoyed the worldbuilding and Chinese-coded culture, as well as the mixture of modern tech and sci-fi magic. The premise was interesting: in the war against alien invaders, the army uses a boy-girl co-piloting system that usually ends up with the girl dead due to being drained of her life force. That sets up a pretty compelling goal for the main character, Zetian: fight the injustice of this misogynist system.
I was into the feminist rage at first. I was right there with Zetian, riled up with indignation over this lack of value of women's lives. But my issue with the story overall is that Zetian is solely fueled by vengeance. Never once does she consider whether repaying violence with violence might not be the most effective way to put an end to this system. She sets out to kill, and kill she does. I thought there might be a positive-change character arc in store, but she never questions her own motives or methods, and by the end it devolves into a power-drunk killing spree.
To me it came across as the worst kind of flat arc: where the character has no flaws and must always be right. They don't need to learn, grow, or admit fault, because they can do no wrong. I think flat arcs work well when the character's core truth impacts not only the world around them, but also how they carry out their own lives. In this case, Zetian didn't allow her value for women's lives to give her a sense of justice that was bigger than vengeance. For a book that's supposed to be about fixing a broken system, there's a lot of implementing the same violent tactics that the broken system uses.
With that said, the story was engaging and kept me interested. The most interesting aspect for me was the parallel to our world exploring the intersection of social media, and power dynamics. In the story, the whole world was watching the army's battles through live-streamed video and sharing their opinions on chat feeds. Part of the plot involved a reluctant partnership with a powerful media mogul, using marketing and branding to manipulate public opinion and influence the course of events. It was an incisive critique of the way social media works today, revealing how those in power often hold sway over public opinion, squashing marginalized people's voices and causes.
I was into the feminist rage at first. I was right there with Zetian, riled up with indignation over this lack of value of women's lives. But my issue with the story overall is that Zetian is solely fueled by vengeance. Never once does she consider whether repaying violence with violence might not be the most effective way to put an end to this system. She sets out to kill, and kill she does. I thought there might be a positive-change character arc in store, but she never questions her own motives or methods, and by the end it devolves into a power-drunk killing spree.
To me it came across as the worst kind of flat arc: where the character has no flaws and must always be right. They don't need to learn, grow, or admit fault, because they can do no wrong. I think flat arcs work well when the character's core truth impacts not only the world around them, but also how they carry out their own lives. In this case, Zetian didn't allow her value for women's lives to give her a sense of justice that was bigger than vengeance. For a book that's supposed to be about fixing a broken system, there's a lot of implementing the same violent tactics that the broken system uses.
With that said, the story was engaging and kept me interested. The most interesting aspect for me was the parallel to our world exploring the intersection of social media, and power dynamics. In the story, the whole world was watching the army's battles through live-streamed video and sharing their opinions on chat feeds. Part of the plot involved a reluctant partnership with a powerful media mogul, using marketing and branding to manipulate public opinion and influence the course of events. It was an incisive critique of the way social media works today, revealing how those in power often hold sway over public opinion, squashing marginalized people's voices and causes.