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I think I might like this sequel even better than the first in the series. As hinted at by the end of Jade City, Lee expands the world in book 2, bringing outside events to bear on Kekon and entangling the Kauls in things beyond its shores which they might prefer to ignore. But she has the good sense to do so mostly as a couple of tightly focussed subplots.

My favourite of them is Anden's time in Espenia. In Jade City I found it very entertaining how that place was clearly a stand in for the US, but it was totally flat seen through xenophobic Kekonese eyes. This was a fun inversion of the usual trope, but also would have been a bit much to continue, so instead we get to experience Espenia through Anden first being banished there and gradually making a bit of home in it. Port Massy feels very true to the NYC of the big wave of Jewish immigration in the early 20th Century, and his host family alternately remind me of the host family that put up my uncle when he first moved to Peoria, or of that uncle & aunt themselves in their early days in NYC living at the end of a subway line. All of it, the place, the community, the distance, and the pressures felt very real and well observed, and it provided a great chance to turn Anden into a fully realised character; one of my favourites now.

Wen also became much more of a whole character, and I enjoyed her arc in itself and for the ways her relationships with Shae and Anden developed. Shae remains the person I'm really cheering on through the book, and I found Hilo to be the one weakness: so much of the drama is driven by his actions, aptitudes, and mistakes, but he still feels more like an idea than a person.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Jade Legacy.

I enjoyed almost every scene of this book. A horrible man who thinks he loves women but does so in thoroughly misogynistic ways (Murdoch was so good at writing this type) gets himself into ever more absurd self-inflicted trouble. His combination of self-absorbedness and refusing to ever really question himself make him insufferable, but his adventures are a good laugh.

But from chapter to chapter I kept asking myself why I was still reading. Somehow the whole of this book is less than the sum of its parts. Given that, the circularity of Jake ending in almost exactly the same way he started felt frustrating, when I think if the arc had felt more compelling along the way it would have been a satisfying end.

I love this series, and I'm honestly not sure why. It's a mashup of two genres I don't usually care for that much: mob and wuxia. It has lots of violence in it, to a degree that I often find offputting (and it's mostly hand-to-hand fighting which I find more real and therefore more affecting than big war stuff). While it does have some good characters, Kekon and Janloon feel more real to me than any of the individual people. Actually Kekon is the series' greatest strength: it feels so very alive, and in the real world I'd be itching to spend some time there the day its gang war ended.

Biggest flaw of all: it asks us to cheer on a side, without giving any reason that they're actually good - the "Star Wars" flaw, and I think also a big part of why I didn't love Dune as an adult in the way that I did as a teenager. It's so clear that No Peak is just as good or bad as The Mountain, and that the only good outcome for Kekon would be the two clans merging, and yet I do find myself cheering on the clan we're allowed to see the action through the eyes of.

But for whatever reason, these books really work for me when things like them usually don't. I loved Jade City, and it's a pleasure coming back to Kekon for the sequel.