Series Review: The Green Bones Saga

The covers of the Green Bone Saga books. Love how they go together so nicely! 

This past week I finished reading Jade Legacy, the third installment of Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga. I reviewed the first book earlier this summer, but felt the series as a whole deserves some time. The saga is a trilogy made up of Jade City (2017), Jade War (2019), and Jade Legacy (2010). Jade City won the World Fantasy Award in 2018, and finaled for several other major awards. The series as a whole is a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2022. You get the picture: the series is popular and critically acclaimed. Unfortunately, the TV adaptation planned by Peacock was cancelled and is being shopped again, hopefully to a subscription service that I actually have. 

The second two books in the saga continue to follow Shae, Hilo, Anden, and the rest of the Kaul family's inner circle as they battle with The Mountain clan for power over Kekon. Jade War focuses on a few years directly following Jade City, but Jade Legacy covers about twenty years worth of time. Both Jade War and Jade Legacy are THICK books, but they have excellent pacing and move well, just like the first.  The scope of the story problems keeps getting bigger and driving toward a thrilling ending. Do I have strong feelings about who lives and who dies by the end? Yes. And that's exactly how I know the author nailed the series. 

My complaint about Jade Legacy is that it feels more like little vignettes than a tied together novel until the very end. However, I still enjoyed the read and that's such a minor complaint to have in a series like this. 

If you enjoyed Jade City, absolutely finish the series. It's for lovers of secondary worlds, Godfather-esque gang/mob conflicts, and if you liked Avatar/Korra, you'll be into this. It's not for you if you don't like long books, and don't want your MCs to be a little morally gray.

​

Next week I'll post about my experience at the in-person Futurescapes at Snowbird workshop!