what I expected: more giant fighting robots, maybe with a bit of Speaker for the Dead-esque eulogizing and responsibility 

what I got: a bizarre and entirely-too-long political manifesto with seemingly no grounding aside from “this is what I want to do,” definitely sexual assault on more than one level, characters that felt wildly different from the first book, and just a whole lot of “what’s even happening here”

I liked-but-didn’t-love Iron Widow, and enjoyed it as an action movie popcorn style read. Heavenly Tyrant falls so short of even that. It’s a hundred to two hundred pages too long, lacking in motivation, and the plot is somehow even flimsier than Iron Widow. Just very disappointing all around. 

(will probably still read the third book when it comes out tho)