Jade War

Product Information

If you couldn't tell by now, Jade War was a marvelous experience for me that will have me thinking of this book as a top, top tier 5/5 for a long time to come. Jade, Kekon’s most prized resource, could make them rich – or give them the edge they’d need to topple their rivals. Check out my YouTube channel where I show my instant reactions upon finishing reading fantasy books. Fonda is as a three-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award), and a multiple finalist for the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and the Oregon Book Award.

But if you’re not too interested in the political and economic machinations of war, don’t worry: Jade War still delivers a powerful and impressive story about the members of the Kaul family. I mean it, the duel scene and the climax sequences exhibited in this installment were brimming with vivid imagery and perceptible intensity. Knowing that Shae might lose this battle, Hilo had a plan to take out everybody involved by dirtying his blade, something that is deeply forbidden within this duels but Shae does not agree with this.This story exemplifies on a whole other level the cost, consequences, and machinations of war because it also so successfully portrays the complex characterizations and heart-felt family dynamics that go with it. I was honestly waiting for the full blow-up of the tension between clans but it was more "war by proxy" between smaller factions and yes, through foreigners! Lee's astute worldbuilding raises the stakes for her vivid and tautly-described action scenes' – Scott Lynch , author of The Lies of Locke Lamora.

The Pillar Hilo, his sister the Weather Man Shae, their cousin Anden who moves abroad to study, and Hilo’s wife the stone-eye Wen. If it wasn’t clear in the first book, it will be evident in this: the characters in Jade War are all morally-gray. Jade City was predominantly about the Clan War but this time there is also a war of nations, involving many countries such as Kekon, Espenia, Ygutan and Oortokon.

There is a cool duel that left me on my tiptoe and many surprised along the way that I think you should experience for yourselves. The thirty-something leader of one of Janloon’s most powerful clans who is cunning, intelligent, sometimes intense, occasionally ruthless but completely family-focused. The worldbuilding and immersion is breathtaking, the pace is like a great detective story, and the creativity is like nothing I have seen before. Following the events of Jade City, the sequel follows the Kaul family of the No Peak Clan, one of two of Kekon’s most powerful clans in which jade-wearing warriors, Green Bones, pledge their loyalty and lives.

In July 2022, it was announced that Peacock had canceled the project, but Lee shared on Twitter that the team were seeking another service to take it up. His is the type of leadership that inspires undying loyalty as he takes the pain to interact with everyone personally. I honestly can’t wait to read how Lee will improve her cinematic set pieces in the next—the last—installment of the series.

There’s a difference between a dog that picks garbage outside your house, and one that jumps through your window to still from your table. Fonda Lee is a black belt martial artist, a former corporate strategist, and action movie aficionado. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Recently, I’ve been having a bad streak of luck in reading SFF books; many of them do have awesome action scenes and original world-building, but they miss one feature that matters most to me, stupendous characterizations.

Though Shae still has a significant role in Jade War, you will see more of Wen as well – a character I was intrigued by in Jade City – and how her identity as a stone-eye (someone who doesn’t react to jade and thus can’t wield it; an identity which holds a lot of taboo) will structure the trajectory of her story, her choices, and her life. Certain individuals may be hugging their children in one scene, then executing someone gangland-style in the next, and then crying about the death of a close friend a few scenes later. Until a few of my friends decided to start this trilogy and we ended up buddy reading this book, which helped me out a lot since I forgot almost everything and the recap I read wasn't enough to cover everything. Friends asked me how I found this book whilst reading it, and the best word I could use to describe it was… ‘bigger’ – and I don’t mean that in the physical-page-number sense. the international background, the alliances in place, how this or that conflict is going, the economical pacts, the emigration rates.

And when the protection of the clan comes first, the love they feel for one another can never stop them betraying each other. In 2020, it was announced that a TV series based on the first novel in The Green Bone Saga, Jade City, was being developed at Peacock, with Lee serving as a consulting producer. I honestly find it very intriguing and it creates a multi-layered feeling to the setting, especially since the perspectives we read from most of the time are from those at the top of the social hierarchy. This information was of course leaked by the Mountain clan to get Shae’s reputation and integrity to be questioned. Even if we are only barely in July, I highly doubt I will be as frustrated with a book as I was with Jade War.