Fonda Lee’s The Last Contract of Isako (2026) is a science-fiction novel from the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the acclaimed Green Bone Saga series, the first book of which is Jade City (2018). Combining cyberpunk, dystopian fiction, and corporate espionage, the story is set in the future on the planet Aquilo, where a hyper-capitalist corporation governs all life. The novel follows Isthmus Isako, a legendary 50-year-old contractor who operates within a rigid warrior ethos called the Code. After her longtime client unexpectedly dies, Isako is forced into one last contract: Sabotage the powerful corporate leader Sandbar Uchi and prevent his ascension to the Company’s ruling Board of Directors.

The novel uses its futuristic setting to explore a society where a person’s value is directly tied to their corporate utility. Lee examines the Devaluing of the Aging Body, The Illusion of Choice Under Capitalism, and The Dangers of Technological Progress, portraying a world where personal freedom and dignity are subordinate to contractual obligation. Lee embodies this social condition in the contractor’s Code, a futuristic version of the samurai honor system, to critique how personal identity and loyalty can be co-opted by ruthless corporate power.

This guide refers to the 2026 Orbit trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of illness, death, death by suicide, graphic violence, emotional abuse, mental illness, addiction, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

The novel is set roughly 500 years after a segment of humanity left the Earth and settled on a planet called Aquilo. This settlement is governed exclusively by a private entity known as Starhome Exploration Group (also called “the Company”), which focuses its work around maintaining an artificial habitable zone on Aquilo. People work for the Company as executives, employees, contractors, or freelancers. Throughout the novel, there is an ongoing debate about whether the Company should prioritize terraforming the hostile geography of Aquilo or reunite with human colonies on other planets, ending a protracted no-contact period known as the Great Silence.

Isthmus Isako is an elite 50-year-old contractor (or “atier”) who works under the moniker “Quickblade.” She acts as one of the Company’s “reapers,” enforcing tasks that range from advising on corporate strategy to dismissing workers, prompting them to die by ritualized public suicide in exchange for a lucrative severance package. When her client, Director Forest Greves of the Astrocommunications division, loses a corporate war against the rival Satellite Operations (SatOps) division, Isako is faced with the grim task of dismissing 200 Astrocommunications employees. The dismissals are fraught with tension; one low-level worker (or “wageman”), Wolf Wyatt, attacks Isako, forcing her to kill him in self-defense. Once her duty is fulfilled, Isako is shaken when Greves, a “reunionist” despondent over his loss and the Company’s shift away from his faction’s goal of space exploration, publicly resigns. Greves walks alongside the dismissed employees into Aquilo’s deadly, unpressurized wasteland, known as the Vastness. This act leaves Isako, who was bound to Greves by a coveted lifelong “Exclusive” contract, a “ronin,” or a contractor without a client, facing an uncertain future.

Isako is summoned by Savannah Minto, the director of SatOps and a “second stager” (a person whose brain has been transplanted into an advanced synthetic body). Minto reveals that Greves, in a final act of loyalty, transferred Isako’s contract to her. However, this poses a conflict of interest since Company policy forbids a client from having two atiers, and Minto already employs Isako’s former apprentice Cloud Sherae. Caught in an impossible position, Isako requests for permission to resign. Minto agrees on the condition that she fulfill one last contract: Sabotage the powerful “terraformist” leader Sandbar Uchi and prevent his confirmation to the Company’s Board of Directors. 

Isako’s only lead is Uchi’s atier, Dragonfly Martim, another of her former apprentices, who has been missing for several weeks. While traveling to Uchi’s division, Southern Continent Gas Production, Isako is intercepted by Condor Anand, the atier for Uchi’s main ally, who tries to bribe her into dropping her investigation. Anand cryptically implies that Martim is already dead. While searching Martim’s empty apartment, Isako finds an empty injection pen for a drug called Sudexatrine 02 and a coaster leading her to a freelance drug dealer named Vincent. Vincent reveals that Martim was buying drugs but was also secretly investigating survivors of the Field 93 disaster, a gas-field accident for which Uchi was officially exonerated. Vincent believes that Martim was killed for knowing too much. After their meeting, Isako is ambushed by Vincent’s associates. She’s unexpectedly saved by her old friend, legendary atier Rain Kob, known as “Strikebreaker.” 

To Isako’s shock, Kob is now a ronin as well, having willingly walked away from life as a contractor some time ago. He agrees to help Isako, leading her to a freelancer shantytown to meet “Waterboy,” the sole survivor of Field 93. Waterboy, a zealous member of the anti-Company extremist group United Freelancers, confirms that Uchi employed measures that ensured the deaths of the workers at Field 93. Armed with this knowledge, Isako confronts the second-stage Sandbar Uchi, who coldly dismisses her accusations, claiming that Martim was fired because he experienced drug addiction. Uchi also asserts that Martim died by suicide. That night, Isako and Kob are ambushed by four mercenary assassins who were sent by Uchi’s bodyguard, River Thea. They barely escape with their lives, confirming that Uchi is hiding a deadly secret.

While taking refuge at Kob’s spartan apartment, Isako discovers that he also possesses sudexatrine. He confesses that he has Gray’s Waste, a fatal neurodegenerative disease unique to Aquilo, which is why he’s living out his remaining time as a ronin. Isako realizes that Martim must have had the same disease, providing Uchi with a motive to eliminate him as a liability. Convinced that Uchi is hiding the truth at the Elite Renewal synthtech clinic where he received treatment to become a second stager, Isako forms a plan. She enlists United Freelancers to create a diversion with bombs while she infiltrates the clinic during Uchi’s final post-operation appointment. 

In the ensuing chaos, Isako fights her way past Uchi’s guards, including a brutal longknife duel with Thea. In the final room, Isako finds the second-stage “Uchi” standing over the real Uchi’s original body, which is preserved and alive in a cryostasis capsule. She understands the horrifying truth: Martim’s brain was transplanted into his client’s synthbody. The man she has been hunting down was Martim all along. At once, Isako fires her gun at the cryo-capsule, destroying it and killing the real Uchi.

With help from Kob, Isako kidnaps the horrified Martim and takes him back to his old apartment. Martim confesses the conspiracy: The real Uchi, who was dying of Gray’s Waste, couldn’t save his life by becoming a second stager. Desperate to get his seat on the Board and influence an important vote against the reunionist faction’s agenda, Uchi forced Martim to take his place. Martim would act as a placeholder for Uchi until such a time that a cure for his disease could be found and he could reclaim the synthbody. 

Kob devises a new plan to save Martim’s life: Posing as Uchi, Martim will secretly broker a deal with Isako’s client, Savannah Minto. In exchange for his survival, he will use his Board vote to support the reunionist faction. When Isako presents this deal to Minto, the director agrees. Soon after the deal is brokered, Martim is assassinated by Marsh Elias, a gunman working for the Agency that manages the Company’s contractors. Isako goes to the Agency headquarters to confront her former mentor Ocean Constance. Constance reveals that the Agency knew about the impersonation all along and had been monitoring Isako via a surveillance bug in her badge. They orchestrated Martim’s public assassination to prevent Company members from setting a precedent where contractors could impersonate directors. Constance also unveils a destructive secret about the reunionist debate: The Board of Directors has known for two centuries that they can re-contact Earth, but they repeatedly vote to maintain the Great Silence to preserve their own power.

Since Isako’s contract has been fulfilled by Uchi’s death, Constance offers her a new position and a path to becoming a Partner at the Agency. Disillusioned with the Company and the Code, Isako rejects both offers. In a final act of defiance, she refuses to formally resign with honors and instead chooses to become a ronin. 

Weeks later, it’s officially reported that Sandbar Uchi was a martyr murdered by the United Freelancers. The terraformist agenda is strengthened under Uchi’s successor, Tide Sullivan. Isako lives as a freelancer with Kob and reconnects with her daughter, Maya, building a new life outside the Code. Isako and Kob spend their days visiting the memorials of the workers they dismissed over their long careers, seeking a measure of peace and retribution. They’re watched from a distance by Marsh Elias but do not fear his presence. Together, they face their remaining time on their own terms.