Heavenly Tyrant, the sequel to Iron Widow, picks up immediately after the first book finishes, and the long ago Emperor Qin Zheng is awake now and won’t be dying of the plague he was certainly dying from. He is immediately accepted as the ruler of Huaxia, and has absolute power. Zetian marries him, and they implement what seems to have parallels to the rise of Communist China and Mao Zedong. He strips wealthy folks of their lands to redistribute and he imprisons and executes many people. During this time, Zetian is terrified and subject to some physical and psychological torture. She is also slowly learning about the way the world works and her own power.
There are some very interesting concepts in here that I enjoyed. The group of powerful alien “gods” that watches over them has been done many times before but I thought this was done in a very interesting way. Also, the way that they handled the fact that the Emperor was placed in a bubble so they didn’t die of other new diseases was very clever. Slowly, Zetian starts getting the emperor to accept some power for women. And he falls in love with Zetian. But this is clearly not meant to be a relationship that is worth shipping, while Zetian makes some poor choices and does treat some folks not the best, the Emperor begins the book by tormenting her. And you don’t get any take backs. Not every relationship is meant to be shipped. Also, Zetian makes it clear that while she appreciates that he is in love with her (less pain for her that way) she does not feel the same. I went to the author, Xiran Jay Zhao’s Instagram page to see if they felt the same way, and they are appalled that people would ship these two.
This book does drag a bit in the middle, then hurtles forward towards the end at a breakneck pace. The foundation laid for the third book was fun and had me gleeful that we’re going to get a satisfying, but probably bloody and messy, end. I am looking forward to it. While I didn’t enjoy this as much as Iron Widow, which I thought was bloody good fun, I did like it and am looking forward to the next one.