Yesterday I finally finished Fonda Lee’s ‘Greenbone Saga’ after having started it almost two months ago. The third book in the series feels very different from the other two, and rather doing a straight up review, I’d like to put some thoughts down about what made ‘this last book, ‘Jade Legacy,’ so different. Be warned, there will probably be plenty of minor spoilers, though I’ll try be vague when possible.

The structure was unique. Rather than a strong overarching plot like the other two books (and most books in general), ‘Jade Legacy’ is comprised of several more minor arcs spaced over the course of twenty years. As ever, there is the imposing threat of No Peak’s rival clan, The Mountain, but their rivalry has settled into more of a cold-war style slow burn. Both sides have grown too large to attack each other without tearing their home country to pieces, so instead they strive for economic and political victories at home and in foreign countries. This ‘slow war’ as it’s called in the book mirrors the greater conflicts at large in the rest of the world as technology progresses exponentially. Some of these battles were small, some were character defining, and some even changed the course of the world, but they never felt like they were truly wrapping things up until the very last arc. It felt almost like a sequence of short stories and novellas all written in the same world. Taking this route felt more grounded compared to most fantasy I’ve read. Like many wars in our world, the rivalry between No Peak and The Mountain has a long, bloody tail rather than an explosive end.

By placing the main conflict from the previous two books in the back seat, Lee was able to tie up more loose ends than I thought possible. About halfway through I was so overwhelmed by the scope of the story that I had lost track of who all even needed a nice ending. The main characters were always in mind of course, but almost every chapter featured a little anecdote about some minor character from the first or second book that lived happily ever after, got their just desserts, or somehow weaseled away with their life yet again to disappear into the night. My personal favorite was an interlude about the death of Kaul Du, a character who was already dead by the beginning of the story, but often referenced by his children, the main characters.

On top of this milieu of minor characters, every single main character got wrapped up satisfactorily, which is more than I can say for many books. I keep trying to remember a character I wanted more from, or a plot hole left unfilled, but I can’t come up with any. Everyone not only got their ending, but stayed true to themselves right up till the end too. Nobody ever felt like a caricature of what they used to be even though all of them did change in fundamental ways over the course of the story. They all grew so much and left huge impressions on the world around them, and of course on the reader too. My only complaint is that some of the characters I came to love absolutely did not deserve the tragedies that befell them. Every last thread tugged at my heartstrings, but man. Did you have to be so cruel???

What’s most impressive to me is that even though she spent so much time wrapping up lingering threads, Lee was also able to establish new characters and give them satisfying (if more open ended) conclusions too. She had to do this, or risk creating a world that seems static. Everyone has their legacies to pass on to the next generation, and those kids have their own stories to begin. Lee was able to convey this exceptionally well without sacrificing that satisfaction of having a closed ending. Don’t ask me how. I just read it and it still seems impossible. As ever, the world goes on, with or without the characters that shaped how it turns while they lived.

Even though it’s not what I expected going in, I fully came around by the end of the book. I love that Lee chose to end the series like this rather than with a more traditional structure, and I’m so impressed that she was able to pull it off. It’s like driving an F1 car for half the race, then switching to a minivan that jumps the track and does a road trip across the country and back before crossing the finish line. It shouldn’t make any sense, and yet, somehow it all adds up by the time the story is over.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley