(SFF Bingo): Jade War, by Fonda Lee

[primeideal]

This is the sequel to Jade City, picking up a year or so after that book ended and continuing over the course of several years. Although our protagonists, the No Peak Clan, and their enemies the Mountain are still nominally at piece, international powers are continuing to fight over access to jade, and so a conflict that was at first limited to one city becomes increasingly global. There are a lot of peripheral characters, but it's a case of "even when I don't remember exactly what that guy's name is, I remember his role in the plot," it wasn't difficult to keep track of the main plotlines.

 

After the events of the first book, Anden is no longer willing to handle jade, and so Hilo sends him to the country of Espenia to study abroad and live in the Kekonese-Espenian diaspora community. His description of culture shock, and seeing how some Kekonese traditions and rituals get recombined and changed as part of the new Kekonese-Espenian culture, felt compelling and well-written. Similarly, Shae's thoughts about the pressures women leaders face, and the risks of being overly aggressive or overly accomodating, in a male-dominated field, were interesting without being didactic.

 

A Green Bone leader couldn’t be soft or hesitant, especially if she was a woman and people were expecting her to fail.

*

Social progress, Kekonese-style, Shae mused. Equal opportunity to die by the blade.

 

So I enjoyed the first part of Anden's plotline, watching him see what it means to be a "Green Bone" in Espenia, and his relationships with people there. Unfortunately, where things lagged for me were in introducing the "Crews" (local Espenian organized crime groups). We already had organized crime elements going on with the clans in Kekon; moving to another country just for more of the same was underwhelming. So the one customs official who's like "excuse me, we're not allowed to take bribes/gifts from passengers" was a nice touch, at least the entire system isn't broken.

 

Duels are a great opportunity for clever one-liners:

 

“Old Uncle in Heaven, judge me the greener of your kin tomorrow, if it be so,” she murmured in prayer to Jenshu the Monk, the One Who Returned, the patron god of Green Bones. She paused. “And if you judge otherwise, at least give me credit for a dramatic attempt.”

 

Cultural stereotypes:

 

When there’s a problem to be solved, the Espenian tries money first, then resorts to violence. The Kekonese tries violence first, then resorts to money.

 

Last time around, I was like, "the other countries aren't totally expies, which is good." This time, I was approaching it more from a perspective of "okay, if this is fantasy!USA and fantasy!China, what does that mean?" Kekon is not nearly as big, relative to its world, as RL mainland China. But the musings about "okay we'll send students to study abroad" "how will we prevent them from just staying overseas?" "make it a condition of their scholarship money that they come home and work for us for a few years" and "we can't just go overseas to assassinate someone, even if he's terrible, that's kind of against international law" are still, uh, very relevant.

 

I also like how the Mountain and No Peak sort of go back and forth in their pragmatic uses of internationalism/nationalism, without being completely indistinguishable--it's the more xenophobic Mountain who are politically in favor of the bill allowing more refugee migration, while No Peak, even though they're more in favor of opening up to the world, wind up opposing it. Hilo is such a villainous character at times that a version of the story written from the Mountain's POV could probably be equally compelling and sympathetic.

 

Now there was even limited reciprocal membership privileges with the Janloon City Club on the other side of the Financial District, which had long been the old boys’ social club of the Mountain clan. Even during the recent period of clan war, money was more fluid than blood. The Green Bones of the two clans might be deadly enemies, but their tribute-paying businessmen remained able to network over drinks at elite establishments.

 

A couple of my nitpicks from the previous review still stand (weird jump into present tense for describing Kekonese festivals; the sex scenes early on are awkward). Sex notwithstanding, the romantic relationship arcs in general are handled well.

 

-the middle part with Shae and Ayt Mada's duel, and Hilo threatening to break aisho, coming right on the heels of Shae's abortion, was gripping.

-Is Maro's family ever going to know what happened to him? D: Can Shae send them an anonymous letter or something?

-This is a question from the previous book but I forgot to post it--was Lan having an affair with Anden's uncle and that's why he viewed Anden as a younger cousin? I guess it doesn't matter at this point.

-the "the doctor had a nervous look in his eyes" part (oh no, oh no) ... "your son is nonreactive" "oh is that all? That's fine" was also very tense and well-handled.

-Considering how Lan died midway through the previous book, I was expecting more death among major characters in this one (Chancellor Son doesn't count), and so Bero's fakeout death got me. (I also didn't expect the "where is Lan's jade" plot to resolve abruptly with Mudt's death, will there be more to this?) On some level I'm kind of rooting for him just because of the way he keeps surviving. Will he be redeemed in the end? Be the last one standing after everyone else kills each other off? I have no idea.

 

Bingo: Vacation Spot (there's even an in-universe afterword written as a "tourist guide!"), Cat Squasher, Author of Color, probably Politics. I don't think it quite counts for "Feast Your Eyes on This": "food or a meal is significant to a story's plot." Not significant, but lots more descriptions of various meals than most of what I read.