The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda LeeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I saw Fonda Lee speaking at Powell’s in Beaverton in 2023, on which day she announced that her next project would be this cyberpunk assassin thriller. Now that I’ve read the finished product, she acknowledges that it’s one of the most difficult projects she’s ever written, due to a lot of personal and professional changes. But it definitely meets the promise of the book she announced that day in Beaverton - a twisty, high octane, excellently built world with an aging ronin of the future confronting the very system that kept her employed all these years. It’s a weird blend of Looper and Altered Carbon, with a dash of Firefly if that had been written authentically Asian (Lee called out that show in Beaverton for its “flavortext” and lack of cultural authenticity.) If not for the second act switch to a certain annoying (yet plot-relevant) new POV running roughly in parallel with Isako in the first act, this would’ve gotten rounded up, but for me it’s a 4.5 rounded down to what Chef Ramsay would call “a very strong 4.”
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