Review - The Bone Raiders by Jackson Ford

The Bone Raiders

Jackson Ford
Orbit, 10 August 2025
Available as: PB, 465pp audio, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356523804

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy of The Bone Raiders to consider for review. 

I loved The Bone Raiders.

Jackson Ford wrongfoots his reader almost from the start (I can't say more because spoilers) in a story of raiders, vainglorious empire builders and giant fire breathing lizards.

The Rakada are the most ruthless, vicious and pitiless raiders in the grasslands known as "the Tapestry". They wear their enemies' bones for ornaments, and often get their plunder without having to fight because of their fearsome reputation. But even the the most ruthless, vicious and pitiless raiders are suffering as a new Khan centralises his people from their scattered communities - so handy for raiding - builds a mighty army, and wages war on the raiders in general.

And the Rakada are about to do something that makes that war personal to them, not general at all...

It was fun seeing how this scenario played out, in a vaguely East Asian themed setting of the khan vs steppes nomads and roving brigands. It was even more fun though seeing how things are driven from the tight knit band of women who constitute the Rakada. For all their fearsome reputation, there are only a handful of them left, and it's clear they will only survive if they try something new. But the only suggestion seems impossible and will lead them into greater and greater danger. Sayana is determined to do what's needed, but it's hard, given complicating loyalties within the band, quarrels between lovers, the need to be loyal to the leader - and the cussedness of giant lizards. (Giants lizards are a theme).

Behind these issues is the uneasy knowledge that - whatever the rationalisation - the Rakada's way of life depends on theft and murder. Ford's characterisation of them is a triumph here. The Rakada women are appealing characters, vivacious, interesting people with rich and developed relationships. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, their motivations - a cold and absent father, a lost family, a passionate love - and these make for a complex and ever shifting power balance between them.

But they are also, as I have said, killers and thieves - indeed, successful killers and thieves as we are reminded every time they put on their bones for a raid. How do you set that against the fact that their leader enjoys to relax with a bit of tapestry, or that they make sure to accommodate the member who needs to communicate in sign?

Ford never shies away from this complexity. Sometimes he shows how the Rakada try to dodge the issues. Sometimes he gets dark humour from it. But it's always there, and it exacts a price. 

This moral depth and - I don't know, texture? chewiness? - marks The Bones Raiders out, I think, from much fantasy, of whatever stripe, and means I look forward to reading the next book when it comes.

For more information about The Bone Raiders, see the publisher's website here.