All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the D. Program. Today we have a fabulous and fantastic guest.

Sharon J. Zhao, who is a not only in New York Times bestseller, which is amazing in and of itself,

but she was disqualified from the Hugo Award, which, I mean, we were aware of the story, but we

want to hear it firsthand.

She's the author of Iron Widow and Zacharying.

I believe you had a new...

Heavenly tyrant, yeah.

Yes, exactly, right.

Heavily tyrant, which looks fabulous, fantastic.

It's about female empress in China, but also with Mecca's.

Isn't that?

Yes, it is.

Okay, so, like, the Iron Widow,

Iron Widow is a sci-fi reimagining of the rise of China's only female emperor, Wu Zootian.

But, like, Iron Widow, that was written when I was more like a liberal.

And it's very girl boss, feminism, but then heavily tyrant, that was after I became more of a liberal and it's very a girl boss feminism but then heavily tyrant that was after I became more of a lefty so it's it features a working class revolution and uh

there literally um my publisher was like can you like tone down the communist references

and then i and then i went in and i um My publisher was like, can you like tone down the communist references? Interesting.

And then I went in and I gave her a scythe, and then I gave her the emperor a sledgehammer.

And that was the way that you're getting.

That was me being subtle.

But we are not here to talk about my books today, because today I really wanted to talk about

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