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Autokrator
I am a gender criminal. I am Unmale, yet I write as though I am a person.
Driven by a Machiavellian mind and ego, Tiresius has risen through the ranks of the Autokracy to become Imperial Treasurer, has won over the trust of the Autokrator himself, and yet, has broken the society’s most scared She has posed as a male for many years. In the eyes of the Autokracy, this gender crime is one of the most heinous a person can commit, and punishable by death.
In this deeply etched speculative world, women — Unmales — have been relegated to non-person status with their reproduction strictly controlled. Their only role is to serve men, and to do so from the shadows.
Tiresius’s rebellion against the Autokracy coincides with that of a Domestic — a female labourer — named Cera. Cera’s son, who was taken from her at birth as demanded by tradition, is the successor to the Autokracy. She is desperate to be part of his life and takes dangerous steps toward revealing herself to him, becoming a gender criminal herself.
The fates of both women become intertwined as they are driven to discover what cost gender and power exact.
Driven by a Machiavellian mind and ego, Tiresius has risen through the ranks of the Autokracy to become Imperial Treasurer, has won over the trust of the Autokrator himself, and yet, has broken the society’s most scared She has posed as a male for many years. In the eyes of the Autokracy, this gender crime is one of the most heinous a person can commit, and punishable by death.
In this deeply etched speculative world, women — Unmales — have been relegated to non-person status with their reproduction strictly controlled. Their only role is to serve men, and to do so from the shadows.
Tiresius’s rebellion against the Autokracy coincides with that of a Domestic — a female labourer — named Cera. Cera’s son, who was taken from her at birth as demanded by tradition, is the successor to the Autokracy. She is desperate to be part of his life and takes dangerous steps toward revealing herself to him, becoming a gender criminal herself.
The fates of both women become intertwined as they are driven to discover what cost gender and power exact.
Kindle Edition
Published April 13, 2024
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7085 people want to read
About the author
Emily A. Weedon
2 books34 followersEmily is author of Hemo Sapiens, a wicked, urban and sophisticated twist on the vampire myth and Autokrator, a spec fiction novel that centres female rage and ingenuity against the backdrop of repression and power.
Forthcoming Emily will have a short story in an anthology about monsters with Dundurn Press and is Co-Editing "Whatever" a short story collection of works by Canadian GenX authors, along with Ali Bryan.
Emily was raised in Coe Hill, Ontario. She worked as a professional in the film industry for over 30 years, including as an Art Director on Murdoch Mysteries, Baroness Von Sketch, and in various roles on The Bride of Chucky. Emily hosts Drunk Fiction, a monthly fiction reading series in Toronto. She is a screenwriter with credits on Red Ketchup, the animated series, and Chateau Laurier the Web Series, for which she won a Canadian Screen Award. She lives in Toronto.
Forthcoming Emily will have a short story in an anthology about monsters with Dundurn Press and is Co-Editing "Whatever" a short story collection of works by Canadian GenX authors, along with Ali Bryan.
Emily was raised in Coe Hill, Ontario. She worked as a professional in the film industry for over 30 years, including as an Art Director on Murdoch Mysteries, Baroness Von Sketch, and in various roles on The Bride of Chucky. Emily hosts Drunk Fiction, a monthly fiction reading series in Toronto. She is a screenwriter with credits on Red Ketchup, the animated series, and Chateau Laurier the Web Series, for which she won a Canadian Screen Award. She lives in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 11, 2024
Autokrator, the debut novel by Emily A Weedon, brings with it some perceived credibility: Weedon is a Canadian Screen Award winner for best writing in a webseries. She’s also won or been nominated for 10 other screen writing awards. And she’s represented by Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory. The novel is published by Cormorant Books, a Toronto-based publisher with a reputation for producing accessible, and sometimes award-winning books. All of that sets up an expectation of a scintillating, remarkable novel.
First, the marketing blurb so you’ll have an idea what this novel is about:
Born nameless, in a rigid, autocratic society that has relegated all women to non-person status — Unmales — two women fight against their invisibility.
The disappearance of yet another Domestic means Cera must take on extra duties and tend the rooms of The Cratorling, the young successor to the autocracy. Face-to-face with him, Cera realizes he is her son, taken from her at birth. She vows to make herself known to him, no matter the cost.
Driven by a Machiavellian mind and ego, Tiresius has successfully hidden her Unmale status in plain sight for years. She rose through the ranks of the autocracy to reach the highest levels of government. She revels in the power she has attained, but her ruse makes her a gender criminal, which is an act punishable by death.
Both Cera and Tiresius are determined to achieve their goals, but, for better or worse, their actions begin to dismantle the framework and foundations of the autocracy itself.
Hopeful and cautionary, Autokrator reimagines gender and power in society against the backdrop of an epic, deeply etched, speculative world.
Where do I begin? I’m sitting here at the keyboard a little hesitant to launch into this review. That hesitancy doesn’t arise from an effervescence of praise; rather, it arises from a remarkable sense of incredulity that Autokrator not only made it past an agent’s desk, but a publisher’s, and then the editor assigned to the manuscript. Had this manuscript come across my desk I would have returned it after the first 30 pages, if even that far.
Why? I’m about to get into that.
Weedon attempts to create a world in which women are utterly subjugated. Her shrill, misandristic story utterly fails in its message, and was better, and brilliantly done by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale.
You will often read me bang on about research, credibility, plausibility, world-building, and character development. All of these elements are essential to craft an excellent story, and all of these elements are deficient or absent in Weedon’s debut novel.
Let’s start with the warrens Weedon creates for the Unmales (women, and what a ridiculous term in my view) to inhabit. These warrens, sapped beneath the citadel where the Autokrator — the head of the totalitarian/parliamentary political regime of the story — resides, are carved out of what Weedon repeatedly describes as soft earth, completely unlit.
There are two engineering problems immediately apparent in that creation: soft earth requires some form of shoring to prevent cave-ins. There is none in the novel. And an underground habitation without light is problematic when the women who live there are the grunt labour of the citadel. Trying to carry goods, even by wheelbarrow, through cramped, unlit, unsupported tunnels just doesn’t make any logical sense.
And where are the ventilation shafts? That requirement for ventilation becomes even more apparent when Weedon sets many of her scenes in the underground bakery which seems to operate non-stop, fired by wood, a bakery which supplies the majority of the bread for the above-ground male population.
How are they getting all that wood underground? How are those ovens operating when there is no air to draw or vent? How is all that flour delivered? That latter seems to be handled peripherally in the story by the head of the bakery who daily goes above ground to acquire whatever flour she can find, and brings it back down by wheelbarrow. That’s a lot of flour. And then because baking bread (in the oven, over an open fire, in a Norse-style or clay oven) is something with which I am intimately familiar, I found myself gritting my teeth over the myriad inaccuracies in Weedon’s presentation. I started asking myself: how can they see to measure out ingredients? How are they leavening their bread? How are they keeping smoke from asphyxiating them? And on, and on, because just that one activity in the novel, which plays a key role, is so egregiously wrong that it infects everything else.
The inaccuracies in just those items comes as a surprise given Weedon alleges to have been raised on a back-to-the-land, subsistence farm.
There’s the scene where one of the characters is cleaning ash from a fireplace in high-ranking individual’s hearth, accessed by a leather-curtained hatch in the warrens. My first thought was: leather curtain at the back of a fireplace? How does that not burn? And then the character accidentally spills ash out into the main room. Weedon describes it as soot. The character enters the room through a servant’s leather curtain (I really don’t understand Weedon’s fascination with leather coverings) in order to clean up the mess, and then describes wiping up the soot with a cloth so that no one knows of the accident. Now, if it’s soot that’s being cleaned, it won’t just wipe away. Soot is greasy. It’s used in making pigment for inks and dyes, as well as paint. Ash, however, is grey, powdery, and can indeed be removed with a brush or damp cloth.
Then let’s discuss the ‘shawls’ the Unmales wear to cover their faces. In the use of these shawls it would appear they’re worn not unlike a burqa. A shawl, however, is a triangular or rectangular piece of cloth, and were one to wear it to cover the entire face, you’d have to fasten or tie it to prevent it from slipping off, and the weave would have to be relatively thin in order to allow for visibility. That is unlike a burqa which is designed to fit around the head, and which has a mesh screen, or eye-slit, built into the garment to allow the wearer to be able to see where they’re going. So, the use of a shawl just doesn’t make sense. And Weedon seems to have an abundance of spare shawls hung at every access door of the warrens, which is remarkable in itself given these women live in utter indigence.
How do these women bathe? There is no mention of running water, or water being brought down to the warrens. If the women don’t bathe, there must be a proliferation of every kind of skin disease, lice and other infestations. How are they handling their monthly cycles without the means to clean themselves?
How do they clothe themselves? There’s no mention of textile or garment manufacture for women in the warrens, and given this misogynistic society Weedon has created, it would be impossible for a woman to purchase fabric or ready-made garments above ground.
The women sleep in niches carved out with their hands from the dirt. If that’s so, then what prevents those niches from collapsing, especially in light of the fact the niches are stacked one atop the other.
And these are just the most egregious of the material culture problems in the novel. There are more. The novel is rife with them.
Let us move on to character development. There is none. What is presented are flat outlines of individuals, not unlike what one might encounter in a screenplay. I thought this before I ever knew Weedon is primarily a screenplay writer. Once I had that information, the lack of character development made sense. That writing skill isn’t in her lexicon.
And once you are aware of that, it then makes sense that the environmental details she creates, or rather doesn’t create, also fall into place. There is no weather. There is no sense of hot or cold, sun or cloud, when the women venture out from the warrens. It’s rather green screen.
What there is a great deal of description about is the gender modification one female character undergoes in order to pass herself off as Male, and thereby rise through the political ranks.
Which brings me to the improbability of that particular character becoming the doppelganger of a young man who dies in an equestrian accident. She utterly assumes his role, even to the point of travelling home to meet with her father who is a man of standing. Quite miraculously she’s accepted. Which, for me, just reinforced the incredulity of the story.
Then there’s the role of the Consort, a male heir, who is required to dress in ‘women’s weeds’, so, essentially, to spend his life-in-waiting as a transgender individual. But that raises the question: if this is a male-dominated society which is utterly misogynistic, a society in which Unmales are loathed, then why is the male heir dressed as a woman? Again, it just doesn’t make any logical sense.
By the end of the story, this phallic-obsessed society masturbates its way into an ideological civil war. Even the women get involved. The conservative male faction who want to exist and procreate without any females, in fact wish to eradicate all Unmales, set about killing women and the men who do not support their radical views. The liberal males kill the conservative males. The women kill everyone. There’s a lot of killing. It’s almost like Titus Andronicus. And then they stop. A liberal male takes the role of Autokrator, an individual who has been fed a slow poison most of his life, and then names as his heir and consort the Unmale he has secretly loved for years. He dies. The Unmale takes power. Her tenure is even shorter. And what happens after that, is, well, not really quite known.
And I was left not really quite caring. Just glad it was over.
Should you read Autokrator? Probably, if you like misandristic, shrill, and not particularly well-written novels. Art is subjective.
First, the marketing blurb so you’ll have an idea what this novel is about:
Born nameless, in a rigid, autocratic society that has relegated all women to non-person status — Unmales — two women fight against their invisibility.
The disappearance of yet another Domestic means Cera must take on extra duties and tend the rooms of The Cratorling, the young successor to the autocracy. Face-to-face with him, Cera realizes he is her son, taken from her at birth. She vows to make herself known to him, no matter the cost.
Driven by a Machiavellian mind and ego, Tiresius has successfully hidden her Unmale status in plain sight for years. She rose through the ranks of the autocracy to reach the highest levels of government. She revels in the power she has attained, but her ruse makes her a gender criminal, which is an act punishable by death.
Both Cera and Tiresius are determined to achieve their goals, but, for better or worse, their actions begin to dismantle the framework and foundations of the autocracy itself.
Hopeful and cautionary, Autokrator reimagines gender and power in society against the backdrop of an epic, deeply etched, speculative world.
Where do I begin? I’m sitting here at the keyboard a little hesitant to launch into this review. That hesitancy doesn’t arise from an effervescence of praise; rather, it arises from a remarkable sense of incredulity that Autokrator not only made it past an agent’s desk, but a publisher’s, and then the editor assigned to the manuscript. Had this manuscript come across my desk I would have returned it after the first 30 pages, if even that far.
Why? I’m about to get into that.
Weedon attempts to create a world in which women are utterly subjugated. Her shrill, misandristic story utterly fails in its message, and was better, and brilliantly done by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale.
You will often read me bang on about research, credibility, plausibility, world-building, and character development. All of these elements are essential to craft an excellent story, and all of these elements are deficient or absent in Weedon’s debut novel.
Let’s start with the warrens Weedon creates for the Unmales (women, and what a ridiculous term in my view) to inhabit. These warrens, sapped beneath the citadel where the Autokrator — the head of the totalitarian/parliamentary political regime of the story — resides, are carved out of what Weedon repeatedly describes as soft earth, completely unlit.
There are two engineering problems immediately apparent in that creation: soft earth requires some form of shoring to prevent cave-ins. There is none in the novel. And an underground habitation without light is problematic when the women who live there are the grunt labour of the citadel. Trying to carry goods, even by wheelbarrow, through cramped, unlit, unsupported tunnels just doesn’t make any logical sense.
And where are the ventilation shafts? That requirement for ventilation becomes even more apparent when Weedon sets many of her scenes in the underground bakery which seems to operate non-stop, fired by wood, a bakery which supplies the majority of the bread for the above-ground male population.
How are they getting all that wood underground? How are those ovens operating when there is no air to draw or vent? How is all that flour delivered? That latter seems to be handled peripherally in the story by the head of the bakery who daily goes above ground to acquire whatever flour she can find, and brings it back down by wheelbarrow. That’s a lot of flour. And then because baking bread (in the oven, over an open fire, in a Norse-style or clay oven) is something with which I am intimately familiar, I found myself gritting my teeth over the myriad inaccuracies in Weedon’s presentation. I started asking myself: how can they see to measure out ingredients? How are they leavening their bread? How are they keeping smoke from asphyxiating them? And on, and on, because just that one activity in the novel, which plays a key role, is so egregiously wrong that it infects everything else.
The inaccuracies in just those items comes as a surprise given Weedon alleges to have been raised on a back-to-the-land, subsistence farm.
There’s the scene where one of the characters is cleaning ash from a fireplace in high-ranking individual’s hearth, accessed by a leather-curtained hatch in the warrens. My first thought was: leather curtain at the back of a fireplace? How does that not burn? And then the character accidentally spills ash out into the main room. Weedon describes it as soot. The character enters the room through a servant’s leather curtain (I really don’t understand Weedon’s fascination with leather coverings) in order to clean up the mess, and then describes wiping up the soot with a cloth so that no one knows of the accident. Now, if it’s soot that’s being cleaned, it won’t just wipe away. Soot is greasy. It’s used in making pigment for inks and dyes, as well as paint. Ash, however, is grey, powdery, and can indeed be removed with a brush or damp cloth.
Then let’s discuss the ‘shawls’ the Unmales wear to cover their faces. In the use of these shawls it would appear they’re worn not unlike a burqa. A shawl, however, is a triangular or rectangular piece of cloth, and were one to wear it to cover the entire face, you’d have to fasten or tie it to prevent it from slipping off, and the weave would have to be relatively thin in order to allow for visibility. That is unlike a burqa which is designed to fit around the head, and which has a mesh screen, or eye-slit, built into the garment to allow the wearer to be able to see where they’re going. So, the use of a shawl just doesn’t make sense. And Weedon seems to have an abundance of spare shawls hung at every access door of the warrens, which is remarkable in itself given these women live in utter indigence.
How do these women bathe? There is no mention of running water, or water being brought down to the warrens. If the women don’t bathe, there must be a proliferation of every kind of skin disease, lice and other infestations. How are they handling their monthly cycles without the means to clean themselves?
How do they clothe themselves? There’s no mention of textile or garment manufacture for women in the warrens, and given this misogynistic society Weedon has created, it would be impossible for a woman to purchase fabric or ready-made garments above ground.
The women sleep in niches carved out with their hands from the dirt. If that’s so, then what prevents those niches from collapsing, especially in light of the fact the niches are stacked one atop the other.
And these are just the most egregious of the material culture problems in the novel. There are more. The novel is rife with them.
Let us move on to character development. There is none. What is presented are flat outlines of individuals, not unlike what one might encounter in a screenplay. I thought this before I ever knew Weedon is primarily a screenplay writer. Once I had that information, the lack of character development made sense. That writing skill isn’t in her lexicon.
And once you are aware of that, it then makes sense that the environmental details she creates, or rather doesn’t create, also fall into place. There is no weather. There is no sense of hot or cold, sun or cloud, when the women venture out from the warrens. It’s rather green screen.
What there is a great deal of description about is the gender modification one female character undergoes in order to pass herself off as Male, and thereby rise through the political ranks.
Which brings me to the improbability of that particular character becoming the doppelganger of a young man who dies in an equestrian accident. She utterly assumes his role, even to the point of travelling home to meet with her father who is a man of standing. Quite miraculously she’s accepted. Which, for me, just reinforced the incredulity of the story.
Then there’s the role of the Consort, a male heir, who is required to dress in ‘women’s weeds’, so, essentially, to spend his life-in-waiting as a transgender individual. But that raises the question: if this is a male-dominated society which is utterly misogynistic, a society in which Unmales are loathed, then why is the male heir dressed as a woman? Again, it just doesn’t make any logical sense.
By the end of the story, this phallic-obsessed society masturbates its way into an ideological civil war. Even the women get involved. The conservative male faction who want to exist and procreate without any females, in fact wish to eradicate all Unmales, set about killing women and the men who do not support their radical views. The liberal males kill the conservative males. The women kill everyone. There’s a lot of killing. It’s almost like Titus Andronicus. And then they stop. A liberal male takes the role of Autokrator, an individual who has been fed a slow poison most of his life, and then names as his heir and consort the Unmale he has secretly loved for years. He dies. The Unmale takes power. Her tenure is even shorter. And what happens after that, is, well, not really quite known.
And I was left not really quite caring. Just glad it was over.
Should you read Autokrator? Probably, if you like misandristic, shrill, and not particularly well-written novels. Art is subjective.
May 20, 2024
Autokrator tells the story of a rigid, misogynistic society in which women, known as “Unmales”, live only to serve men through their free, backbreaking labor or as incubators for the continuation of the male species.
The two first-person narrators of this brilliant speculative novel are Tiresius and Cera. Tiresius begins life as a Domestic but knows she has the intellect and passion to go to the Capital and gain a position of power. However, as an Unmale, her biggest challenge is finding a way to realize her goal. The beautiful Cera, on the other hand, is relegated to the Imperial Consiliorum where she is expected to birth a male child. She soon discovers she has produced the Kratorling—a child who will one day rule as the Autokrator (Supreme Ruler).
While the novel is set in the late 1600s-early 1700s, the themes are familiar to us: misogyny, male supremacy and gender roles (what the hell, Butker?), reproduction, political power, and scientific “progress”. What a great book club title to discuss!
Thank you to Cormorant Books for the ARC in return for a candid review.
Finally, might I just add that Adria is my hero. 🤷🏼♀️😉💪
The two first-person narrators of this brilliant speculative novel are Tiresius and Cera. Tiresius begins life as a Domestic but knows she has the intellect and passion to go to the Capital and gain a position of power. However, as an Unmale, her biggest challenge is finding a way to realize her goal. The beautiful Cera, on the other hand, is relegated to the Imperial Consiliorum where she is expected to birth a male child. She soon discovers she has produced the Kratorling—a child who will one day rule as the Autokrator (Supreme Ruler).
While the novel is set in the late 1600s-early 1700s, the themes are familiar to us: misogyny, male supremacy and gender roles (what the hell, Butker?), reproduction, political power, and scientific “progress”. What a great book club title to discuss!
Thank you to Cormorant Books for the ARC in return for a candid review.
Finally, might I just add that Adria is my hero. 🤷🏼♀️😉💪
April 21, 2024
Weedon has created a rich, detailed dystopian world which feels very relevant to modern life. I devoured this book.
July 6, 2024
The premise sounded promising. As I progressed through the novel, similarities to Handmaid's Tale and Foundation came to mind. There were too many elements that did not work for me in the story and I felt like the uprising should have taken place hundreds of years earlier than it did.
August 20, 2024
This book was so imaginative and the world building was fantastic. I could not put it down! I won this book in a giveaway from the author and I’ve told so many people that they need to read it. I especially love the formatting of the book and the way it concluded. What a wonderful standalone!
October 29, 2025
Autokrator is a fast-paced, wild ride of a dystopian fiction. At least, I think it’s a dystopia. Weedon is deliberately ambiguous as to when and where the book is set. As suggested by the title, aspects of her fictional society are similar to those of Ancient Greece. People of all genders wear robes, political rule is by a combination of monarchy and oligarchy as best as I understand it, the economy seems to consist of agriculture and trades, and homoerotic relationships between men are revered. There is also a nod to Rome, with the term “pater” used for fathers or father figures and bloodthirsty wars amongst kings.
However, there are also aspects of Weedon’s world that seem contemporary to ours or more technologically advanced than ours. Their medical technology is highly developed and they are at the point of being able to grow babies entirely outside the womb. Though it is a dystopia, in some ways, it is perhaps superior to our world. They have motorized vehicles, but only rarely use them. People travel by horse, which is much better for the environment. Their use of technology has not extended to cell phones and people communicate the old-fashioned way.
The defining feature of this world is that it is divided into Above and Below. Males live Above. Below is a series of tunnels and passageways where Unmales dwell. Unmales is Weedon’s term for women, who are seen only in terms of what they are not. Unmales do menial labour for Males, and the political leadership is searching for ways to make them obsolete. The goal is a world entirely without women. Here is what makes Autokrator unique: there have been other books that feature dystopias where women are subjugated, such as Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, but they tend to look at the existence of women as necessary for reproduction and domestic drudgery; women must be limited to those tasks and not allowed to dream beyond them. I have not read another book besides Autokrator that takes misogyny to extremes - what if those tasks could be outsourced, and women did not exist at all? It’s a fascinating and chilling premise, and one I would have liked to hear a little more about. With all the women gone, there would need to be a underclass of males to cook and clean and feed babies and raise children. How would they determine who this would be? Also, I wondered what the relationship of this society was to the rest of the globe. Were there other places different than this one, and how did they get along? It’s the mark of an interesting read when I am asking such questions.
The two main characters are Tiresius and Cera. Tiresius is born Unmale but fosters a deception to become Male. Cera is also Unmale but circumstances lead to her being disguised as a Male. Tiresius is fully committed to the lie; s/he craves the power and influence that only Males can have, and ruthlessly and single-mindedly chases this. I wondered at some points if Tiresius was intended to be transgender, but this was never made clear.
Cera, on the other hand, is only pretending to be Male due to the situation she is in. As a result, she moves fluidly between worlds, escaping Below when she requires the assistance of women. While Tiresius chases political power, Cera seeks only the child taken from her. Her story is intertwined with that of Vincius, the developer of artificial womb technology. Vincius also has a secret wife and son, familial relationships such as this being outlawed. We see why: to totalitarians, any source of loyalty or tender feelings other than the ruler is a threat, and an impediment to the cold-bloodedness of decisions made by those like Tiresius, who allows no ties of affection to anyone.
The pages turn fast, with the rollicking quality of a thriller, as these characters run in and out of trouble. I found myself rooting for both of them, as despicable as Tiresius is. With the developments of both fascism and the rolling back of womens’ rights south of the border and creeping north, Autokrator is a very timely read. Weedon also has a new novel out, Hemo Sapiens, a horror story featuring female vampires.
July 9, 2024
Riveting! A "master" piece! This hit the spot for me. Is this where the world is heading? Do we want to go there? Here we have a speculative account of what I dearly hope is a fictional near-future, yet touches close enough home to strike a clarion call.
This is no history. History is written by the victors, after all ... and perhaps rediscovered and "interpreted" by mysterious others later on. What we have are "propaganda diaries" representing two extreme outliers in a subjugated people of a misogynistic and regressed time to come, where men rule and women, or Unmales, are facing genocide. Clever and ruthless Tiresius has masqueraded as a man since childhood, and there's much body horror and trigger warnings to be had surrounding this metamorphosis ... extremes met with extremes. Cera more reluctantly takes on the costume, driven less by hatred and self-interest and more by a rather traditional love of son and father. These characters and their journey help etch out a deeply unsettling value system ... the little details, writ plainly, catch you off guard.
What I didn't like, I can largely forgive. This is a flawed what-if, and the periodic narration makes that clear, although some readers may not be appeased. This is a scroll half-buried in the sands of some future time. It's disturbing, it's treacherous, it's unbelievable, it's inconsistent. But the message is clear. This is the result of hegemonic misogyny. Cults seeking to do away with female-bodied people by reinventing the womb, and of course technochauvinism leading to the "clean" solution of machines. Princes wearing "women's weeds" as abject humility -- for what could curb a budding ego more than enforced symbolic embodiment of the most despised and devalued class of people? The utter acceptance of a phallus in any form, the deep need for regular confirmation of dominant masculinity, was somehow spot on (no pun intended) and over the top. This is an embellished account, meant to never let us forget the point for the plot.
I was dismayed at how intersex and genderqueer people were written off, even though it made sense in the context of this twisted future. The rising up of the womenfolk felt like a missed opportunity there. I was also surprised at how race/racialization was skimmed over. Perhaps this was altogether a little too "anachronized Romanesque" in fashion.
Still, for me, this was an epic horror of what might be coming. I hope this is only a feeling, not a moment to come.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and Cormorant Books for the advance copy.
This is no history. History is written by the victors, after all ... and perhaps rediscovered and "interpreted" by mysterious others later on. What we have are "propaganda diaries" representing two extreme outliers in a subjugated people of a misogynistic and regressed time to come, where men rule and women, or Unmales, are facing genocide. Clever and ruthless Tiresius has masqueraded as a man since childhood, and there's much body horror and trigger warnings to be had surrounding this metamorphosis ... extremes met with extremes. Cera more reluctantly takes on the costume, driven less by hatred and self-interest and more by a rather traditional love of son and father. These characters and their journey help etch out a deeply unsettling value system ... the little details, writ plainly, catch you off guard.
What I didn't like, I can largely forgive. This is a flawed what-if, and the periodic narration makes that clear, although some readers may not be appeased. This is a scroll half-buried in the sands of some future time. It's disturbing, it's treacherous, it's unbelievable, it's inconsistent. But the message is clear. This is the result of hegemonic misogyny. Cults seeking to do away with female-bodied people by reinventing the womb, and of course technochauvinism leading to the "clean" solution of machines. Princes wearing "women's weeds" as abject humility -- for what could curb a budding ego more than enforced symbolic embodiment of the most despised and devalued class of people? The utter acceptance of a phallus in any form, the deep need for regular confirmation of dominant masculinity, was somehow spot on (no pun intended) and over the top. This is an embellished account, meant to never let us forget the point for the plot.
I was dismayed at how intersex and genderqueer people were written off, even though it made sense in the context of this twisted future. The rising up of the womenfolk felt like a missed opportunity there. I was also surprised at how race/racialization was skimmed over. Perhaps this was altogether a little too "anachronized Romanesque" in fashion.
Still, for me, this was an epic horror of what might be coming. I hope this is only a feeling, not a moment to come.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and Cormorant Books for the advance copy.
June 3, 2025
AUTOKRATOR is a dystopian feminist novel that asks, Where do babies come from? I’m kidding! But sort of not kidding. Also Emily Weedon creates is a very funny writer!
In an Imperialist world, Deka, an Unmale, finds herself in the above world and after witnessing the gory clobbering of a boy around her size and age, she decides to take his place, becoming Tiresius, a man with self-centred ambitions to get into the palace, control the purse strings, and stand on the right side of not one but two Autokrators.
In another point of view, we meet an Unmale who was born Cera but is known by her number and several categorizing tattoos in the Below world. She finds herself one day in the company of the Kratorling (the 2nd in line to the Autorkratorship), a five-year-old boy who she immediately recognizes is the son she conceived with a man she still loves (who happens to be 1st in line to the palace).
In a complex twist of fate (a Toolist is trying to make babies in bottles without Unmales), their lives come together as they both try and figure out where all the Unmale domestics are disappearing to and how can they secure a future in a society hell bent on destroying all the “women”. The writing is a perfect blend of future and past. The setting is a dark, muddy mix of autokinetics and underground tunnels. The characters are heroic, anti-heroic, fat, mean and often times funny. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
In an Imperialist world, Deka, an Unmale, finds herself in the above world and after witnessing the gory clobbering of a boy around her size and age, she decides to take his place, becoming Tiresius, a man with self-centred ambitions to get into the palace, control the purse strings, and stand on the right side of not one but two Autokrators.
In another point of view, we meet an Unmale who was born Cera but is known by her number and several categorizing tattoos in the Below world. She finds herself one day in the company of the Kratorling (the 2nd in line to the Autorkratorship), a five-year-old boy who she immediately recognizes is the son she conceived with a man she still loves (who happens to be 1st in line to the palace).
In a complex twist of fate (a Toolist is trying to make babies in bottles without Unmales), their lives come together as they both try and figure out where all the Unmale domestics are disappearing to and how can they secure a future in a society hell bent on destroying all the “women”. The writing is a perfect blend of future and past. The setting is a dark, muddy mix of autokinetics and underground tunnels. The characters are heroic, anti-heroic, fat, mean and often times funny. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
April 22, 2024
Imagine a world where women are relegated to performing unpaid labor with no autonomy while others are set aside as breeders. These unmales serve at the whim of the Supreme Ruler.
It’s certainly a premise that wouldn’t set well for today’s liberated women. However, much like the dystopian world depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale, author Emily A. Weedon delivers a cautionary tale in Autokrator.
The story takes two main characters, Tiresius and Cera, and highlights their efforts to rebel. Both gender criminals they fight to expose the Autokrator. Their stories intersect in a powerful story arc, demonstrating how far they will go to secure a different path.
Meanwhile, the ruler uses science to explore ways to cut the unmales out of the breeding process. The beauty of the story is the author’s smooth writing style that sucks you in. However, the book desperately needs a new cover in order to showcase the powerful story within.
Autokrator delivers a multi-faceted book highlighting a society with extreme views about women. ~ Amy for Novels Alive
It’s certainly a premise that wouldn’t set well for today’s liberated women. However, much like the dystopian world depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale, author Emily A. Weedon delivers a cautionary tale in Autokrator.
The story takes two main characters, Tiresius and Cera, and highlights their efforts to rebel. Both gender criminals they fight to expose the Autokrator. Their stories intersect in a powerful story arc, demonstrating how far they will go to secure a different path.
Meanwhile, the ruler uses science to explore ways to cut the unmales out of the breeding process. The beauty of the story is the author’s smooth writing style that sucks you in. However, the book desperately needs a new cover in order to showcase the powerful story within.
Autokrator delivers a multi-faceted book highlighting a society with extreme views about women. ~ Amy for Novels Alive
Read
October 27, 2025Doesn't go far enough, if you ask me. I thought it could have handled the whole 'having to pretend to be male' part better, perhaps by speaking with trans people who have to go through this, or reading Leslie Feinberg's 'Stone Butch Blues', but I'm just grateful that a book sees the patriarchy for what it is, a conflict between males and unmales.
July 19, 2024
A promising dystopian plot that catches your interest from the beginning but the book really fell flat for me about two thirds of the way through. It was a push to finish. Unfortunate, as I was really excited about this one
Read
July 10, 2024DNF
December 4, 2024
Great book! Fantastic new author. Can't wait for her next work. Highly recommended for fans of speculative dystopia, especially as things are becoming less and less speculative these days.
June 21, 2025
Amazing absolutely womderful
Keep writing luv your awesome 😘
Keep writing luv your awesome 😘
July 30, 2025
A dystopian tale of life in a patriarchy, where “unmales” fulfill the roles of domestic drudge, breeder or sexual plaything. Until it changes…
April 20, 2024
This book was an adventure the whole way through. I couldn’t predict what could possibly be in the next page. As well, it make a very good stand for women’s rights while also telling a compelling story of deceit, love, and murder. Everything was done with care, every interaction, and every description. I love this book from page 1, 5 stars!
September 6, 2025
The adventure of two women hiding their female identities to survive within a nasty patriarchal society where women are marginalized and oppressed - impossible not to shelve beside A Handmaid's Tale. This book lacks Margaret Atwood's finesse - characters are 2-dimensional, the prose lacks nuance, the setting worldview is a mishmash, and and the emotional messaging is obvious, repetitive, and not particularly original. I liked it enough to get half way through, but had one too many times where I would read something clunky or inapt and stop reading, disappointed to have my attention squandered; my escapism shattered I finally escaped.
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