Green Bone Saga (Jade City, Jade War, Jade Legacy) by Fonda Lee
4.0 Stars
1-22-2024

The Joy Luck Knife Fight Club

Alt: Dishonorable warriors can't 'ear you

An unusual but interesting 1500 pages of alt-history urban-wuxia gangster-clan soap-opera. The first unusual thing is that the author decides to create an alt-history, but also to have the alt-history closely mirror the nations and trends of our own world. I.e. America and Britain get mushed together into a global capitalist Western entity called Hispania. All the Nordic countries become Steppenland. The Cold War becomes the Slow War. Japan becomes Shitar. Christianity becomes the Truth-Bearers. WWII becomes the Many Nations War. Cricket becomes Rucketts. Taiwan becomes Kekon. Etc. etc. etc. So you still have all the main ideas and events of the modern world, but everything has had the serial numbers filed off. Which raises the question of, why do that? Unclear! But unusual. The next big item on the list is Jade. Into this alt-history, the author introduces the idea of "bio-reactive jade" as the Hispanians(West) would have it, or a gift and a test from the Gods as the Kekonese(Taiwanese) would have it. Jade is only found in a single location (alternate universe Taiwan, aka Kekon), and is only usable by a portion of the natives of the island. These lucky people, the Kekonese, can use Jade to access Wuxia-type abilities. This requires a certain aptitude, and a lifetime of training starting in childhood, but at its full flower these Jade abilities include things like super-human lightness and speed, strength and resilience, the ability to sense and read auras, and the ability to heal or harm purely with energy. So that's what the lucky Kekonese get. For the other natives of the island Jade is an inert stone, while for the unlucky population of the rest of the world Jade acts as a sort of Dragon's Gold, driving the possessor to greed for more Jade, paranoia, madness, and finally to bloody self-destruction. So on most Western maps, for most of history, Kekon was a cursed island, guarded by fierce warriors and madness-inducing gemstones. It's only in the modern age that Jade has become more widely known and understood.

Whew, that is 90% of the setup done. Now we enter into the main story, ~1960's Kekon, where the heroic generation of Jade Warriors that drove out the Japanese occupiers is fading away, and the united resistance front formed in that war has fractured into multiple clans, each feuding for power and prestige. Our protagonists come from the main family of the No Peak Clan and ... I would say more but I don't want to spoil anything. Instead in general terms I would say that what you get is a buffet of story elements. Do you want Wuxia combat? Sure, that happens occasionally, though it is in no way the focus of the story like you would get in a Brandon Sanderson novel. Do you want some brief but surprisingly erotic sex scenes? Yep, that happens about as often as magical knife-fights. Do you want trade negotiations? Oh yes, we have trade negotiations. There is family drama, relationship drama, child rearing drama, plots and counter-plots, marriages and deaths, triumphs and tragedies, spies and snipers, bombs and bloodshed, and deep and varied introspection of people's place in the world and their culture. Really it's that last bit that surprised me, in that you have these deep dives into what it means to be Kekonese with a Hispanian parent, or to be a Kekonese that has gone to Hispania for college, or a Kekonese that grew up in Hispania, or Kekonese-Shitarian, or a Kekonese that has come back to Kekon after living abroad, etc etc etc. There's all the racial and cultural aspects that we have in the real world, but also an Honor-based aspect, as an 18 year old that comes from a dueling society takes Intro to Statistics with a bunch of no-magic MBAs and has to navigate and try to find their place in these disparate worlds. The world also gradually grows larger and larger as the story unfolds, and what starts off as bloody sword fights between island clans gradually widens out to include more and more aspects of the modern world. It reminded me of the Expanse in that way, in that the enormous and seemingly all important concerns of the first novels gradually become just threads in a much larger tapestry.

Is it good? Kind of. At various points I ranged between ranking it at 2-4 stars, between loving it and wanting to throw it away in disgust. Let me just say that one thing the novel does well is that it does not give characters too much plot armor. As it mentions at several points, there is nothing certain in a duel, and it is entirely possible for characters that you have spent ~500 pages with to either die or to be crippled in various ways. The series doesn't engage in Game of Thrones style grim-dark just for the sake of it, but it is cognizant that there is no completely safe way to engage in a magical gang-war. One other compliment I would give to the author is that she takes positions that I don't agree with, and does a wonderful job of selling them. I.e. not a fan of gangsterism or clannism, but she does an excellent job of making the protagonists sympathetic despite their flaws. Going back to Game of Thrones, I've never read George RR Martin or any other fantasy author and thought to myself "you know, I should really start a Great House". Here though the author does a good job of selling the benefits of extended family and exchanged favors, rather than atomized individuals living in a world of equally applied laws and rules and money. Not saying that she has changed my mind, just that she managed to strongly convey these character's viewpoints through the story. Another compliment; you really want someone to make a boardgame out of this world building, something like Mr President, that models the steadily expanding concerns of the Kekonese clans. I would do it myself, if not for that great Albatross of Copyright.

One more note: the book Jade City is about a war, while the book Jade War is about the city. Someone should let her know about this oversight.