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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSWu Zetian is eighteen and living in a frontier village in Huaxia, a futuristic world where giant transforming war machines called Chrysalises defend the Great Wall against invading alien Hunduns, each one powered by a boy pilot and a girl concubine pilot whose life force he can drain in battle. Zetian's older sister Ruyi died only months into her service to Yang Guang, one of the country's top pilots, and their family mourns only the payout they never received. With her friend Yizhi secretly helping her pluck the unibrow that has kept her unmarketable, Zetian volunteers to become Yang Guang's next concubine pilot, hiding a blade inside her wooden hairpin and a plan that has nothing to do with surviving the war. What happens once she steps into his Chrysalis changes everything anyone believed about girls like her.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Iron Widow
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Iron Widow. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a butterfly emerge with one black wing and one white wing?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Zetian and Yizhi watch it hatch with mismatched yin and yang wings, and his tablet tells them the creature is both male and female. The image stays with Zetian because she wants to exist without a simple label pinned on her.
- First half
In what book is wonton soup named after how southerners pronounce the invaders' name?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Sima Yi drops the fact almost at random over breakfast in the training camp cafeteria. Small details like it show how thoroughly the Hunduns have soaked into ordinary life in Huaxia.
- First half
In what book does a girl locked in a pilot's cell ask his dead co-pilot's ghost for help?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Sima Yi will only tell Zetian that the previous girl was named Wende and did not survive her first real battle with Li Shimin. Shut alone in his bunker, with the dead girl's things still sitting under the sink, Zetian talks to the empty room, first telling her to go haunt someone else and then asking her for help.
- Second half
In what book does a top-ranked girl pilot snap, "Stay. Away. From my partner"?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Zetian corners Dugu Qieluo at the communal showers hoping to win over Huaxia's highest-ranking female pilot and gain an ally against the local strategists. Instead Qieluo accuses her of turning up inside Yang Jian's head during a battle link and knocks her to the floor.
- Second half
In what book does a strategist order two armored teenagers to jump off the Great Wall?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
Sima Yi makes Zetian and Li Shimin leap off the top of the Wall at night as a partner exercise, giving them exactly one try. Li Shimin springs off with her in his arms, and then she pushes away from him and flies by herself for the first time.
- Near the end
In what book does a crown sprout four flapping wings when a boy touches it with his qi?
✓ Answer
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
The banquet crowd is underwhelmed by a plain double circlet until Li Shimin feeds spirit metal from his own armor into it and the feathers come alive. He is finally receiving the King of Pilots crown the army withheld from him for two years.
