Jade Legacy

Jade Legacy is the final book in the Greenbone Saga by Fonda Lee. The previous two books have been absolutely stellar, with Jade War blowing the original out of the water, shocking everybody by not only dodging middle book syndrome, but surpassing the original book. So Jade Legacy had a lot to live up to, the pressure mounting with every day that passed. And I'm pleased to say that, not only did Fonda stick the landing, she once again surpassed the previous book.

Jade Legacy delivers on the promises of the series in ways that are both expected, and come out of left field. No character's conclusion feels wrong for them, each of them making it to a point that makes perfect sense, even when if it wasn't necessarily what I expected for them.

A big part of that in my opinion is the books really interesting structure. The previous books took place over the course of a year or two, whereas this one takes place over 20, with 4 major timeskips in it. I knew about this going, and was really dubious, since I haven't seen a lot of stories pull that off particularly well, but I can't see any other way for the story to have been told.

Due to this structure, this book is DENSE. Almost every chapter has some hard hitting moment, where a major event unfolds, or a character has everything come tumbling down around them. This should, by all rights, feel like there's just too much going on, but for some reason, I never felt like it was.

I think it has something to do with how the book is structured, since the time jumps, both big and small allow you to have a degree of separation from these events, whereas when you don't get the time jumps, such as with the bombs early on, the scenes feel much more intense, forcing you to deal with the event as it happens, instead of getting a play by play of the events after the fact.

Lee also continues to show her ability to deal with difficult issues with tact and grace in this book, and it's so good. She deals with disability, being a failure, turning into your parents, being scared of not living up to what came before and having your idyllic view of your parents shattered.

I was particularly impressed by how she handled Wen's recovery from her disability that she received at the end of Jade War. Wen was a character who I definitely enjoyed in previous entries, but Legacy elevated her to a whole new level for me, placing her firmly in my top 5 characters.

The world of the book has expanded massively, to the point where we now see every major country that's been mentioned in the past, and the effects of Jade on them all. Shotar in particular was one that I wasn't expecting to show up in the book, but I'm glad it did, since it definitely had the most interesting vibe out of all of them, especially considering the history that it shares with the main characters.

Lee still handles death in an expert way, rarely having it be this Hollywood-esque thing, where last words get exchanged, and one liners are shot out at the speed of light. Instead, death is a generally very quick and dirty affair, that has to be brushed past in the moment because of the dire stakes of the moment. None of them really hit the same as Lan's in the first book, but that's likely because of just how different his death was to traditional fantasy death.

Seeing how the culture of Janloon evolves was another highlight of the book. The Green Bone culture has just gotten more and more enticing as the series goes, being this neat amalgamation of Samurai honour codes, and Yakuza street rules. Watching that chafe against an ever expanding world is such a fascinating time, especially when you see how foreign Green Bones treat their culture, and doubly so when you see how foreigners use Jade as a tool, instead of a status symbol

Fonda's prose is as usual, pretty good, but nothing all that special. She doesn't really have any stylistic hallmarks, she just writes an engaging world that's rich with descriptions, and has tight dialogue. It's not quite as basic as early Sanderson, but it's certainly no Rothfuss either. It fits in a nice little spot where it just does the job really well.

Where her writing shines is in the distinctiveness of each PoVs voice. If Lee didn't tell you who's head you were in, you would likely still be able to work out, since each character has subtle differences to them that allow you to get a real feel for them, and even allows you to see inside their head when they aren't the PoV character, because you just know how they're going to react to the things that are going on around them.

All in all, I cannot recommend this book enough if you have any positive feelings towards the rest of the series. It sticks the landing in spectacular fashion, in a manner few veteran writers can manage, let alone a debut author. This was an absolute tome of a novel, that was such a page turner, I read it faster than most novellas. I'll be purchasing every Fonda Lee novel day one in the future.