Jin Yong Books In Order

Publication Order of Condor Heroes Books

Publication Order of The Return of the Condor Heroes Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Jin Yong
Zha Liangyong, born in 1924, was one of the bestselling authors in the world, with over one hundred million copies of his books sold, which doesn’t include unknown amounts of bootleg copies. Jin was once the best-selling living Chinese author. He is better known by his pen name of Jin Yong.

He was born in Haining, Zhejiang in Republican China, and was the second of seven kids. He hailed from the scholarly Zha family of Haining, the members of which included the notable literati of the late Ming and the early Qing dynasties.

Cha was originally a journalist. When he got transferred to New Evening Post (of British Hong Kong) in the role of Deputy Editor, he met up with Chen Wentong. And it was under Chen’s influence that Cha started working on “The Book and the Sword” in 1955, his first serialized martial arts novel.

Cha gained admission to the Department of Foreign Languages at the Central University of Political Affairs in Chongqing but dropped out of the school later on. He took the entrance exam and got admission to the Faculty of Law at Soochow University, and then majored in international law with intent of pursuing a career in the foreign service.

In the year 2005, Cha applied at Cambridge for a doctorate in Asian, which he got in the year 2010. In the year 2009, Cha applied to get another doctorate in Chinese literature at Peking University, which he received in the year 2013.

Jin is beloved across China for novels on wuxia (chivalry and martial arts), that have given rise to film, comic, television, and video game adaptations. He wrote fantasy stories that have been translated into many languages, which include: Thai, English, Vietnamese, Korean, Malay, Burmese, Indonesian, and Japanese.

He was the first editor-in-chief of of Ming Pao, a Hong Kong daily newspaper and a paper that was co-founded by Cha. He founded the paper with Shen Baoxin, his high school classmate. While Cha was editor-in-chief for many years, writing both editorials and serialized novels, which amounted to ten thousand Chinese characters each day.

He was married three times and divorced twice. First in the year 1948 to Du Zhifen. In 1953, he married Zhu Mei, with whom he had four kids with. In the year 1976, he married Lin Leyi, 29 years his junior; the couple was together for more than forty years.

Jin was awarded an OBE in the year 1981. He is also one of two authors that are on the MacLehose list that have asteroids named after them, with the other being Georges Perec.

He died in the year 2018 at the age of 94 after a long illness.

“A Hero Born” is the first novel in the “Condor Heroes” series and was released in the year 2018. A hero is born.

After his dad, a Song patriot, was killed, Guo Jing and his mom fled off to the plains and joined both Ghengis Khan and the rest of his people. Driven, loyal, humble, he learned all that he could from the warlord and his army in hopes of later joining them in their cause. What Guo Jing does not know is that he is destined to fight a foe that is going to challenge him in each and every way imaginable and with a link to his past that nobody envisioned.

With the guidance and aid of his shifus, who are the Seven Heroes of the South, Guo Jing goes back to China to confront his foe and carry his destiny out. In a land divided by war and treachery, ambition and betrayal, he is going to have to put both his knowledge and courage to the test in order to survive.

“A Bond Undone” is the second novel in the “Condor Heroes” series and was released in the year 2019. Guo Jing, in the Jin capital of Zhongdu, finds out the truth about his dad’s death and finds that he is now bethrothed to two women, against his will. Neither one of them is Lotus Huang, his sweetheart.

Torn between going with his heart and fulfilling his own filial duty, he goes through his parents’ country with Lotus. Along the way, he gets drawn into the struggle for the Nine Yin Manual, the supreme martial text, and encounters some mysterious martial heroes. His past catches up with him. The widow of an evil guy he killed by accident when he was a kid has located him, intent on getting her revenge.

At the same time, his real parentage becomes revealed, Yang Kang (the young prince that Guo Jing has to fight in the Garden of the Eight Drunken Immortals) has to pick his destiny. Is he going to continue to enjoy his life of privilege and wealth that has been afforded to him by his homeland’s invader? Or will he give that all up in order to avenge his parents?

“A Snake Lies Waiting” is the third novel in the “Condor Heroes” series and was released in the year 2020. China in the year 1200 AD. Guo Jing has gone up against Apothecary Huang, the dad of Lotus Huang his sweetheart, on Peach Blossom Island, and taken out Gallant Ouyang the villainous in all three trials in order to win his beloved’s hand.

Now, along with his shifus and two friends, Zhou Botong of the Quanzhen Sect, as well as Count Seven Hong, Chief of the Beggar Clan, and he has walked right into another trap. Tricked into getting onto an unseaworthy barge by Apothecary Huang, and the three friends are going to surely drown unless Lotus, who overheard the plans of her dad, are able to save them.

Even if they should survive the voyage, great dangers lay in wait back on the mainland. Viper Ouyang, the uncle of the gallant, and one of the Five Greats of the martial world, is sure to have his revenge on Guo Jing for besting his nephew, and determined to become the most powerful master of the wulin. At the same time, Yang Kang, who Guio Jing has started trusted, is close to revealing the full extent of all of his treachery.