Almost everyone in China wore a piece of jade for good luck, becuse everyone knew if an evil god caused you to stumble, the spirit of jade would get between your and the evil and take the brunt of the fall from you and shatter, saving you from shattering. If it didn't then the Jade God was regrettably asleep and that was your joss nevermind.

Perhaps my favorite epic installment of the series (I think King Rat stands great apart from the rest, but is still relevant to the overarching plot as evidenced by this book).

I love how much plot is driven by dialogue in Clavell's novels, and this is no exception as perhaps his longest, but far-from-the-most tedious of his books. At this point, the Asian Saga beat is familiar, and Clavell graciously doesn't put as much emphasis on cultural juxtaposition or lost-in-translation snafoos. Instead, we get witty and cunning characters molded by generational indebtedness (hell yeah the coins are relevant again), as well as historically familiar and relevant circumstances involving trade, intelligence, and free market forces.

Whereas King Rat included my favorite characters, and Tai-Pan the salient setting for the plurality of the series, this book is a superset of both those facets which made those books enjoyable featuring recurring characters in the form of Clavell's autobiographical stand-in of Peter Marlowe and his nemesis Grey, as well as the 9th generation of Struans and Brocks.

I thoroughly enjoy as well the signature theme of natural disaster at inopportune time: diábolos ex machina.

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