January 21, 2022

**SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE GREEN BONE SAGA!**

When I set out to write reviews for my blog, I made some ground rules: I would only review the first book in a series and not the rest. I would never include any spoilers. And I would never say a book is perfect.

Today, I break all those rules with no remorse or regret because Jade Legacy, the third and final book of The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee, is the single greatest novel I have ever read in my entire life.

Jade Legacy picks up where Jade War left off: the No Peak and Mountain clans are still at war, international interest in jade has increased, and the Kaul family is striving hard to maintain their control over their clan, country, and culture. Over the course of twenty years, the Kauls and the next generation of Green Bones must determine who is their friend and who is their enemy in a world where that fact can change at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile, Kekon as a country must defend itself and its way of life against the brewing interests of foreign militaries as jade, once exclusive to Kekon and its people, becomes a readily accessible and extremely coveted modern commodity in every facet of society from warfare to showbiz. Old feuds explode into new battles, blood is shed, and friendships forged as the No Peak clan and the Kaul family defend their empire against the world.

Buckle up, friends. This is going to be my longest review to date. I have a lot to say about the masterpiece that is Jade Legacy, starting with the fact that it has now become my all-time favorite novel, dethroning The Hobbit that has held that title for the past twenty years. Yes, this book is just that good. It’s setting, conflict, and characters are masterclasses in worldbuilding, engaging plot, and dynamic development that every would-be writer and reader of fantasy must learn from. Lee has raised the bar on fantasy fiction with Jade Legacy.

Let’s start with the cornerstone of fantasy as a genre: the setting. The Green Bone Saga takes place in a fictional world similar to Earth but with different countries and governments ruled by crime syndicate families called clans, the main two being No Peak and the Mountain. The main focus is Kekon, the ancestral land of jade: a magical substance that can grant the wielder superhuman abilities. Jade City kept much of the focus on Kekon, while Jade War gave inklings of life overseas. Jade Legacy, though, careens into the entire world Lee created where every location from the bustling city of Janloon to the loneliest island plays a role. What Jade Legacy becomes in terms of genre is an epic urban fantasy. Where the mastery comes in is with how Lee slowly expands the setting as such expansion serves the conflict and characters. We don’t worry about Espenia until Anden, a half-Espenian, uses his heritage to benefit the No Peak clan overseas. This same expansion is applied to the magic system of jade. In Jade City, jade is largely used in a traditional fantasy sense: it’s a magical object that allows the wielder to have extra-human abilities and people fight with it. However, as we move through the saga and through Jade Legacy especially, jade becomes more than just a magical rock that makes you strong. Instead, it becomes a military tool, a medical marvel, an entertainment, a social status symbol—illegally, legally, in the highest levels of government and all the way down to the lowest of foreign gangs. It is as coveted as gold, as dangerous as a bomb. The magic of jade permeates everything about the world in a way that is meticulously thought out and very believable. Lee does not merely drop jade into an Earth-esque world and allow it to exist in a consequence-free vacuum. She drops it in and she takes the world through all the ripple effects over the course of decades that such a magical commodity would create. The setting of Jade Legacy is more than just a made-up country and a fancy magic system. It is a history—past, present, and future all laid out by Lee. This is what it means to be epic fantasy.

An epic setting is not enough to keep a reader engaged. We read epic fantasy to see epic conflicts, and Lee does not disappoint on this front either. Jade City took us through a pretty straightforward plot: the No Peak and Mountain clans were at war, that war took place on the streets of Janloon, and it was fought physically for the most part. Jade War expanded that war to be fought politically and economically (and still physically), and then Jade Legacy expanded it still more to then be fought internationally. What I found especially skillful of Lee was that she was able to make a conversation in a boardroom as tension-filled and engaging as a talon knife duel in the streets. I was just as concerned for the financial well-being of No Peak and their corporate interests as I was for the very lives of each individual clan member. I wanted to see both the chess-like negotiations in offices and the fistfights in the bars. Lee made all actions plot actions. How? By making sure we saw the consequences of these actions. No actions in the entirety of The Green Bone Saga happen without an equal and opposite reaction. There are thousands of ripples in this series that Lee makes sure to map out in the plot. The most famous and far-reaching is (super mega spoilers coming, you have been warned) the death of Kaul Lan, the Pillar of No Peak in Jade City. His death sets in motion all the events in every character, country, etc. of this world. (Making Bero actually very important and influential, the bastard.) He could have just been killed off as a motivator for Hilo and Shae, and/or to move people into place. Essentially, he could have been fridged, and honestly the books would probably still be good. Instead, Lan, his death, and its consequences reach all the way to the last pages of Jade Legacy. Who he was as a person, a brother, a Pillar, his struggles and successes, his desires, his marriage and family, and how/when he died—all of it plays a massive role in the entire saga. This same influence is true for all the characters and all their actions. Look at Bero—damn this man who just won’t die—he makes completely selfish decisions from the bottom of society, and yet the ripple effects are seen in government offices overseas. When you create a plot around consequences and action/reaction, it lends greater scope to the plot, higher tension, and better reader engagement. A simple summary of the books being about No Peak versus the Mountain becomes complex, driven relentlessly forward into new territory in an organized, organic manner. Nothing is isolated, and everything becomes important.

One of the greatest side effects of this conflict style is the depth of development it lends to the characters. The Green Bone Saga has hundreds of named characters. Jade Legacy alone introduces an entire generation’s worth of new people. It’s a lot to keep track of. It’s tempting to write off a lot of characters in fantasy fiction as the NPCs of the world, characters that have no depth to their person, no influence over the plot, and no connection to the main characters other than to point them in the right direction. There are no NPCs in this saga. Because Lee made sure every action mattered, that meant that every person doing those actions mattered, too. I cared about everyone (dammit, even Bero). I am famously a cold-hearted ice princess when it comes to characters dying in books, but I cried over several character deaths in this saga. No one’s death, not even the “bad guys’”, is without tragedy. Lee assigns human worth to everyone through the purposefulness of their actions. She makes sure we see everyone as human beings trying their best to do what they have deemed as right. She gives everyone a motivation, a desire, a connection to the wider world. They could be a murdering psychopath, and yet I would mourn their passing in the book. And she does not pull her punches. Women, children, newly married, new parents, innocent bystanders, by suicide or by homicide, with purpose or by accident, no one was safe in The Green Bone Saga. On the opposite side of that, everyone is also given opportunity for growth and development. Because Jade Legacy spans decades, we get to see characters grow and change in many different ways. Instead of just the events of the plot being the driving force behind character development, the simple passage of time and life gives even greater, more relatable depth to the characters. We see Hilo go from being a reckless street-fighter to a leader of the clan, a husband, a father, an international power. We see characters get old, their backs and knees hurt, and their kids acting just how they did twenty years ago. It’s life, and it’s beautiful. I really admire that Lee gives us insight into the domestic and personal spheres of each character. We see Wen and Hilo’s secret sexy-time in the kitchen when the kids are finally gone, or Shae picking up her daughter from school, Anden studying for his exams. The same is true for the minor/enemy characters. This character depth is often overlooked in fantasy fiction, and some don’t believe it adds much to the character. But if we never saw these scenes, if we only saw characters ruthlessly exercising the martial might of the No Peak clan, we wouldn’t care as much when they die. We wouldn’t have seen how marrying and becoming a parent and making friends changed their priorities, made us think deeper about their actions and the far-reaching consequences. Every character would have been just another face, an NPC that gave her/his life so the MC could live. But Lee wanted more for her characters than that. You can tell she loved each and every one of them (yes, even Bero) and gave them life in her story.

I can go on about the masterfulness of The Green Bone Saga and Jade Legacy. I probably will go on about it for weeks in my personal life to unsuspecting baristas and bystanders. I know it will be tempting to disregard my review. It’s breaking all the rules I set up, rules I had for good reason. It’s just hype, you might say, and who can believe hype these days. All I can do is assure you that I spent a good amount of time thinking through Jade Legacy, looking at it with all my skills as a writer and reader, and everything I said about it is true. Maybe you tried the series and didn’t like it. Fantasy’s not your thing. That is fine. I am not asking anyone to love this book and series as much as I do. However, I think what we need to acknowledge, because Fonda Lee deserves to have this acknowledged, is that what she accomplished with this series and especially Jade Legacy is the highest form of writing skill out there to date. She has broken the ceiling on fantasy fiction and taken it to new heights never before attempted or succeeded at. She created a masterpiece, and her skills require our recognition. 

I genuinely hope you pick up this saga and read it and enjoy it. It has changed my life for the better, and that is no exaggeration and dramatization.

The clan is my blood, and the Pillar is its master. On my honor, my life, and my jade.

Thank you, Fonda Lee.

Check out my Instagram @jennacglover for three separate mini reviews of Jade Legacy.

Learn more about Fonda Lee and The Green Bone Saga HERE