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Series · 3 books

The Green Bone Saga

Fonda Lee · read by Andrew Kishino

They tell a story. Hardcover files every book in this run as fiction, and their readers there call them tense, dark and adventurous. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Listen to it

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one sits in the top 41% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. −0.40, where we start backing the page; 0.40, where we start backing the recording.The Green Bone Saga
close call · 0.01 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Audio has the easy job on this one: only 8% of the reviews we read called it demanding, so nothing in it needs a page you can flick back through. The recording and the book are received about equally well: Andrew Kishino’s reading sits in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 1,835 ratings of the narration. So the format is doing all the work here.

Length does not decide this

71h 40m to listen, at 1×57h 20m to listen, at 1.25×47h 47m to listen, at 1.5×40h 57m to listen, at 1.75×35h 50m to listen, at 2×about 61 hours to readabout 46 hours to readabout 37 hours to readabout 28 hours to readabout 23 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s, 3 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,840 pages in total at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 3 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,840 pages in total at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 3 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,840 pages in total at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 3 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,840 pages in total at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 3 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,840 pages in total at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

Slot → commute-safe

Harder work in audio than Slaughterhouse-Five.

All the books we hold · 222

About as much work in audio as most of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

About as much work in audio as most of the fiction we hold.

Doorstoppers · 54

Easier to hear than 74% of the doorstoppers we hold.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits on that line (the format is not fighting you either way), between the bottom 34% and the top 23% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−0.37
In your ears−0.49
Audio disadvantage−0.23

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books on both counts (effort on the page and effort in your ears). The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.
This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

The audio case
0.41It sits in the top 41% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.18Andrew Kishino’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 1,835 ratings of the narration. This is a difference, not a score: it sets the reading against its own book, so a much-loved book with a merely good reading sits low on this shelf even where nobody disliked either.
What is at stake
0.63It sits in the top 29% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: well enough regarded that a wasted first encounter costs more, so we lean towards protecting the page. Blended across 248,513 Goodreads ratings and 1,957 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • The print crowds think highly of it

For the recording

  • The voice and the book are received about level
  • Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
  • 1,835 listeners behind it

So the case for the recording won it, but only just.

A bigger dot counted for more: the voice and the ear are sized by their share of the sum above, the other two by how much stands behind them. A hatched square is a reason that did not apply here, which is not the same as one that counted for little.

Evidence
1.00How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The reading1,835 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,957 readers there: as good as it getsThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 900 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it gets

What each crowd complains about

In the reviews we read, how often readers brought it up and how often listeners did, each against what is usual for that same crowd across our whole shelf, which is the grey tick. The track stops at 4×. Listeners are only ever compared with listeners.

Listeners of this book bring up keeping the names straight more than four times as often as listeners usually do, while readers of it bring it up about as often as readers usually do.

The books in it

Showing the stars as each shop prints them. The two crowds are not measured from the same place: on our shelf Audible’s listeners average 0.35 of a star above Goodreads’ readers, so a recording that is ordinary for Audible can still out-star a book that is genuinely well liked for Goodreads. Switch the toggle to take that difference off.Showing each figure as its distance from its own crowd’s middle on our shelf, in standard deviations, so 0 is a typical book for that crowd. Listeners start 0.35 of a star up, partly because anyone who finishes a twenty-five-hour recording chose it deliberately, and this takes that off. It is not a claim that audio is better, the story figure is still Audible’s own (people rating a story they heard), and none of it moves the verdict above.

One row per book: who reads it, how long it runs, then Audible’s listeners on the story and Goodreads’ readers on the book.

Jade City
Andrew Kishino19h 06m15h 17m12h 44m10h 55m9h 33mAudible 4.23−1.25Goodreads 4.05−0.59
4.22·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
47%5 stars: 47 per cent, 495 ratings
34%4 stars: 34 per cent, 356 ratings
15%3 stars: 15 per cent, 153 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 38 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 10 ratings

1,052 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.44−0.78 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
57%5 stars: 57 per cent, 514 ratings
32%4 stars: 32 per cent, 284 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 83 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 10 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 5 ratings

How often this goes badly1.7% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. About typical for the shelf. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

15 of 896 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United
  • Warm, this one
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A warm room: most listeners are happy with the performance, and a small group are not.

896 ratings

4.23−1.25 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
47%5 stars: 47 per cent, 420 ratings
34%4 stars: 34 per cent, 307 ratings
14%3 stars: 14 per cent, 125 ratings
3%2 stars: 3 per cent, 29 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 12 ratings

893 ratings

4.05−0.59 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
33%5 stars: 33 per cent, 42,341 ratings
45%4 stars: 45 per cent, 57,750 ratings
18%3 stars: 18 per cent, 22,723 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 4,594 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 1,273 ratings

128,681 ratings

Jade War
Andrew Kishino24h 05m19h 16m16h 03m13h 46m12h 03mAudible 4.58+0.19Goodreads 4.37+0.84
4.61·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
68%5 stars: 68 per cent, 439 ratings
26%4 stars: 26 per cent, 170 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 31 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 3 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 2 ratings

645 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.70+0.34 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
75%5 stars: 75 per cent, 419 ratings
20%4 stars: 20 per cent, 113 ratings
4%3 stars: 4 per cent, 21 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 2 ratings

How often this goes badly0.5% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

3 of 556 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 75% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

556 ratings

4.58+0.19 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
67%5 stars: 67 per cent, 371 ratings
26%4 stars: 26 per cent, 147 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 29 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 6 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 2 ratings

555 ratings

4.37+0.84 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
49%5 stars: 49 per cent, 32,677 ratings
40%4 stars: 40 per cent, 26,361 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 6,176 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 839 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 195 ratings

66,248 ratings

Jade Legacy
Andrew Kishino28h 29m22h 47m18h 59m16h 17m14h 15mAudible 4.75+0.86Goodreads 4.61+1.90
4.77·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
80%5 stars: 80 per cent, 345 ratings
17%4 stars: 17 per cent, 72 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 11 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating

430 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.82+0.87 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
85%5 stars: 85 per cent, 331 ratings
13%4 stars: 13 per cent, 49 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 6 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating

How often this goes badly0.5% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

2 of 388 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 85% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

388 ratings

4.75+0.86 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
80%5 stars: 80 per cent, 309 ratings
17%4 stars: 17 per cent, 65 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 10 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 2 ratings

387 ratings

4.61+1.90 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
69%5 stars: 69 per cent, 37,073 ratings
24%4 stars: 24 per cent, 12,766 ratings
6%3 stars: 6 per cent, 3,108 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 513 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 124 ratings

53,584 ratings

The verdict is for the series as one commitment (71h 40m57h 20m47h 47m40h 57m35h 50m of it), because that is the decision you are actually making.

The series

The Green Bone Saga

No more announced yet · One voice throughout

3 books numbered on Goodreads’ list, with 2 novellas or companions filed between them. Everything Goodreads lists is published, the last of it in 2023, and nothing new is announced, which is not the same thing as finished. We start saying finished after five quiet years.

Andrew Kishino reads all of the 3 volumes Audible names in our records.

From Goodreads’ own series index, checked on 11 September 2026.

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of Jade City, and it is the reading the call above leans on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Andrew Kishinoour pick19h 06m15h 17m12h 44m10h 55m9h 33m · One voice · Audible UK and US
    • The same voice all through

    Performance 4.44 · Story 4.23 · 893 rated the reading · 1.7% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

The recording we mean · Jade City

Runtime
19h 06m at 1×
Read by
Andrew Kishino
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B076H9GV7Q · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 731 + 165 ratings of the performance
Judged on
1,835 ratings of the narration
Published
Little, Brown Book Group · 2017

Audible sorts a search by newest, so ours may not be the first one you are offered. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 19h 06m, that is the reading these numbers describe. “Judged on” is the crowd behind every judgement we make about this reading: the smaller of the performance and story counts, which is why it is a little under the two shop counts added. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.