Empress of Forever is an English language speculative fiction novel published in 2019 by American fantasy writer and Hugo Award finalist Max Gladstone (whose name you may recognise, as he is one of the co-authors of This Is How You Lose the Time War, alongside Amal El-Mohtar).
The plot is based strongly on the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. The protagonist of Empress of Forever is Vivian Liao, an extravagantly wealthy and famous prodigy inventor who - in the middle of an act of corporate espionage and industrial sabotage - finds herself spirited away entirely from Earth. Caught between warring factions and trying to get back home again, Viv is assisted by a motley cast of characters derived from Cheng'en's plot, including Zanj, a trickster space pirate notorious for stealing entire solar systems. Zanj is clearly derived from Sun Wukong, the Monkey King who escorts and repeatedly rescues the protagonist Tang Sanzang in Journey to the West.
Empress of Forever is full of action, humour, suspense, and plot twists which manage not to feel trite, despite the nature of the novel as a genre adaptation of an ancient work. Gladstone's prose is lavish and energetic, and he refreshes the characters in interesting ways. Past enjoyment of This Is How You Lose the Time War is not a strong predictor of enjoying this novel, as their themes have very little in common with each other, but Empress of Forever is a fast and fun read which I can recommend to anyone who thinks "space pirate breaks out of space prison and wants to take down a space empress" sounds pretty neat.
Iron Noder 2021, 8/30