Jurjen
It's been a while since Fonda Lee's last full-length solo novel released, which was Jade Legacy about 3.5 years ago (covid time is so fake). Jade Legacy being my favourite book of all, Greenbone Saga being my favourite series of all time, and her book with Shannon Lee falling a bit flat, Isako had a lot to live up to. And it was great!
The emotional heart of this story is the parallel journey of two contractors struggling to live by a code, one young and one old. Both increasingly growing disillusioned. As you can expect, Fonda Lee's character writing is on-point, and I was invested in both their stories immediately. Combined with interesting and complex secondary characters, the whole cast of this book meets the standard she set with Greenbone Saga.
The story is about a contractor on her last mission before resignation (which entails voluntary suicide to spare resources for humanity on a world with great scarcity), in which she gets embroiled in the mysterious fate of her old student, who is a contractor to the big rising star in The Company. Overall the narrative is very well crafted, and its many twists foreshadowed quite well. Some twists I was able to guess, others blindsided me. Both worked! The pacing is solid, the narrative structure interesting and constantly engaging (though I expect this part to be perhaps a little more of a contentious thing among fans), and the ending worked really well.
Lastly, worldbuilding. What made the world of Greenbone Saga so interesting is that it felt so lived in. From macroeconomics, to microeconomics, to how finance relates to politics, to geopolitics, to car brands, food and technology. There's such attention to detail in those books, and I was gladdened to see that Fonda Lee paid just as much attention to crafting the world in this story.
Really looking forward to whatever next project she's working on! Fonda Lee is an insta-buy.
It's been a while since Fonda Lee's last full-length solo novel released, which was Jade Legacy about 3.5 years ago (covid time is so fake). Jade Legacy being my favourite book of all, Greenbone Saga being my favourite series of all time, and her book with Shannon Lee falling a bit flat, Isako had a lot to live up to. And it was great!
The emotional heart of this story is the parallel journey of two contractors struggling to live by a code, one young and one old. Both increasingly growing disillusioned. As you can expect, Fonda Lee's character writing is on-point, and I was invested in both their stories immediately. Combined with interesting and complex secondary characters, the whole cast of this book meets the standard she set with Greenbone Saga.
The story is about a contractor on her last mission before resignation (which entails voluntary suicide to spare resources for humanity on a world with great scarcity), in which she gets embroiled in the mysterious fate of her old student, who is a contractor to the big rising star in The Company. Overall the narrative is very well crafted, and its many twists foreshadowed quite well. Some twists I was able to guess, others blindsided me. Both worked! The pacing is solid, the narrative structure interesting and constantly engaging (though I expect this part to be perhaps a little more of a contentious thing among fans), and the ending worked really well.
Lastly, worldbuilding. What made the world of Greenbone Saga so interesting is that it felt so lived in. From macroeconomics, to microeconomics, to how finance relates to politics, to geopolitics, to car brands, food and technology. There's such attention to detail in those books, and I was gladdened to see that Fonda Lee paid just as much attention to crafting the world in this story.
Really looking forward to whatever next project she's working on! Fonda Lee is an insta-buy.