Synopsis
Jade, the mysterious and magical substance once exclusive to the Green Bone warriors of Kekon, is now known and coveted throughout the world. Everyone wants access to the supernatural abilities it provides, from traditional forces such as governments, mercenaries, and criminal kingpins, to modern players, including doctors, athletes, and movie studios. As the struggle over the control of jade grows ever larger and more deadly, the Kaul family, and the ancient ways of the Kekonese Green Bones, will never be the same.
The Kauls have been battered by war and tragedy. They are plagued by resentments and old wounds as their adversaries are on the ascent and their country is riven by dangerous factions and foreign interference that could destroy the Green Bone way of life altogether. As a new generation arises, the clan’s growing empire is in danger of coming apart.
The clan must discern allies from enemies, set aside bloody rivalries, and make terrible sacrifices… but even the unbreakable bonds of blood and loyalty may not be enough to ensure the survival of the Green Bone clans and the nation they are sworn to protect.
Review
“You were so certain the clans were headed to the trash pile of history, as if we haven’t been fighting wars ourselves this whole time, on every level and around the world. When I said I’d bring you down, you only ever assumed I’d have you killed.”
Well, my flabber is truly gasted. I don’t know how to write a review for this book. It is a masterpiece. Tying in 25+ character threads across 25+ years in one book is… yeah I don’t have the words. There simply isn’t a stronger antagonist than Ayt Mada. The way she outmatches Hilo for tenacity or Shae for strategy is exquisite. I am going to hold out hope that someday Fonda Lee will write a book from Ayt Mada’s POV.
“The way to defeat a chess master was not with greater genius, but by forcing her to play a different game.”
The book starts with a bit of conflicting actions by both Shae and Hilo in the beginning and even though they’re not the best people, it felt a tad out of character for them. The writing however was just as or even more addicting than in Jade War. It was a 700 page book but I only took 3 days to get through it, reading the last 400 in one day. I’m pretty sure I could have been clinically diagnosed with non-substance addiction. I was compulsively seeking and sneak-reading Jade Legacy throughout work and the evening and I’m certain it has altered my brain chemistry. I really don’t know how one could stop reading it.
Since it involves more than two decades of story, there are a lot of time skips. But they don’t even register as gaps. The writing is so smooth and so strong that it felt very natural and not jarring in the least bit. After the initial hitch, the story flowed so well. I was especially impressed with how far and diverse the author took the characters – both on their internal journey and physically all over the world. So many characters and they all traverse quite a bit over the continents and yet all of them are connected back to one city and one substance; the jade from Kekon.
The plot takes us all over the world and over 20 years and yet it all cohesively comes together to one crime family’s saga. The geopolitics is turned up a notch from Jade War and we explore even more new regions in Shotar, Oortoko and Stepenland. The No Peak Clan faces so many challenges. One crisis doesn’t even have to end for the next to start. I don’t know how Fonda Lee has managed to stitch so many different things together in the tale, from legal and illegal mining of Jade, exploring new sources of jade, the jade black market, insurgents, different crime factions trying to steal/obtain jade, different nations trying to steal/obtain jade, ongoing clan war, power struggle in both clans, regular citizens lives being affected by the jade trade, prejudice against stone eyes, prejudice against clansmen, prejudice against citizens of Janloon and foreign people, assassination attempts, war, tragedy, loyalty, survival, passing of the torch from the old generation to new generation, reconciliation between family members, and so much more. Jade Legacy and the Greenbone Saga pushes the boundary of what epic fantasy can do in ways I’ve not seen before.
It is very hard to pick apart the different aspects of this book and expand upon it like plot, pacing, prose, character work, world-building, magic system, action sequences because Fonda Lee excels at each of it. In the interest of actually ending this review and not writing a whole book about how good this book is, I’ll only focus on Fonda Lee’s greatest strength in my opinion: Character work. It takes something very special to make the readers keep reading about bad people. These are not run-of-the-mill people in evil professions but have a heart of gold types, they are genuinely bad people who do morally evil stuff in every few chapters. Convincing the readers to not just keep reading but actually feel for these characters when they suffer tragedies is her first victory and is nothing short of actual magic. The second victory is how well rounded they are. Each character is very distinct and very real that it is impossible to distinguish that this is a fictional world character and not just actual people from alt history. The third victory is the transformations that each character undergoes. From subtle and slow changes to radical changes after traumatic events, every character arc feels natural and instinctive. All of this is not just over a period of three books and long periods of time, Fonda Lee introduces new characters in this book and is still able to make them achieve all of this in just this book. At this point, she’s just showing off how well her character work is.
“You’d think it would be easier to face death as you get older, but it doesn’t work that way. You get more attached to life, to people you love and things that are worth living for.”
This quote surmises pretty much how I feel about the ending of the book. Usually when I come towards the final stages of a book, I tend to look at the number of remaining pages to see how they can conclude the story in only 50 more pages, 25 pages, etc. but in this one I was counting down not wanting it to end. What an epic and satisfying conclusion. Every character arc is fulfilled and Hilo simply recaptures the #1 Greenbone character spot that Shae and Anden stole before. It is very hard to talk about it without spoilers and because I don’t have the words to describe just how awesome it is. I will simply point to Bero’s character arc. This is a character that is pretty much universally despised by the Greenbone fan base but in the ending, the author makes the readers appreciate even his character. And I don’t think there is a better way to end it as well. The Greenbone Saga begins and ends with Bero. Similarly, even as a mental exercise I cannot fathom any better developments or additions to every other character. It is just perfection.
“Far do your enemies flee, Kaul-jen, and may the gods shine favor on No Peak.”
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