Brilliant first act. Zetian, the main character, is not a good person but is believably what her society made her. There is much emotional satisfaction to be had in watching her destroy her enemies, who are appropriately loathsome. Her bisexual polyamorous love interests, Yizhi and Shimin, are less well-developed than she is but receive enough attention that each is sympathetic and compelling. The second act retains a lot of energy but becomes much more muddled. Huaxia, the fictional realm in which the story is set, is meant to be a pastiche of medieval Chinese society and a sci-fi future with mecha and social media but only compellingly portrays the former. The attempts to integrate modern cultural commentary with those on medieval China are confusing and underdeveloped. While the unsparingly grim nature of this society and its situation contrast well with the personal relationships Zetian has, it often felt like edge for the sake of edge and ultimately weightless. The climax and third act more broadly are only half-baked and compressed into the last 50 pages of this 400 page book. At times they feel more like a synopsis than part of the story. There was usually some setup done, but insufficient development occurred for core plot beats to land. I do not feel, as some reviewers do, that this book was bad or anticlimactic, but Iron Widow does feel acutely incomplete.