The Last Contract of Isako

The Last Contract of Isako combines great character work and plot with fantastic world-building. Isako is an atier trac (A Tier Contractor) on the harsh colony world of Aquilo. She handles strategy and wetwork in corporate struggles that escalate to war. When the story begins, she’s 50 years old, her knees hurt, she’s lost a war, and her duty involves terminating employees as part of the downsizing.

The first big hint that something is very much up is that there’s no room for freeloaders on Aquilo. People who don’t have a job are supposed to retire themselves by marching as far out into the frigid, nearly oxygenless wastes as they can, their bodies an example to encourage the future in the great labor of terraforming. That should be Isako’s fate, but she’s hired for one last job to dig up dirt on a man who absolutely shouldn’t be joining the Board of Directors, the brilliant and unstable Uchi.

The plot draws Isako into corporate intrigues, murders and coverups, the disappearance of her apprentice, the fate of an old friend, and the horrific lie that defines the world. The plot and Isako’s characterization are strong, but what I appreciated most is the setting. Lee draws heavily on samurai cliches, but Aquilo isn’t a bunch of strange retro fetishists. Instead, they’ve found their way here from reasonable first principles. The colony was a corporate project, many directorates under one Company. Officially, everyone should have a job and that job is for life, but that’s a statement that cuts both ways, and leads to people being fired out an airlock. After an armed riot broke vital colony infrastructure, guns were banned and the warrior elite rely on long knives to do their work. It all makes sense, and it leads relentlessly to the specific plot. Brilliant!