Review: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
Two warriors shepherd an ancient god across a broken land to end the tyrannical reign of a royal family in this epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds.
WINNER OF THE IAFA CRAWFORD AWARD • WINNER OF THE BRITISH FANTASY AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE URSULA K. LE GUIN AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE IGNYTE AWARD
The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family — the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors — hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.
But that god cannot be contained forever.
With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt – stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.
Both a sweeping adventure story and an intimate exploration of identity, legacy, and belonging, The Spear Cuts Through Water is an ambitious and profound saga that will transport and transform you—and is like nothing you’ve ever read before.
TW: violence, child abuse, horror elements.
Review:
Dear Simon Jimenez,
Janine previously reviewed your book here in 2022. I bought and read your book for one of the book clubs I belong to. At the time I am typing this review we have not had the meeting about this book just yet, so I do not know what my book friends think about it. I cannot wait to find out, because I have not been as torn about a book for a while. Reading this story reminded me of the mythology based stories I read as a child (not the exact topic, just the tone and God being closely involved with the mortals). The book felt like listening to a song and feeling the Rhythm of a dance, which is unsurprising since dance is mentioned often enough, so I would have swallowed this book very fast. It did not hurt that the two boys at the center of the story fell in love with each other and I really liked both of them.
The story has an adventure plot front and center and both adventure and romance are woven together. This book in many ways was SO MUCH my cup of tea, but, for this reader, the author decided to paint too sophisticated of a picture and parts of the story both annoyed and confused the living hell out of me. The reason why I am still giving it a B and not a lower grade is because I would argue that the confusing (for me) part while clearly part of the larger narrative was not all that important to me. I mean I get how it is important to the author and the story, but every time the story switched to second person POV I groaned, said “here we go again,” and tried to read it as fast as possible.
Basically nothing that is mentioned in the blurb confused me. The story of Keema and Jun helping God and trying to help in overthrowing the tyrants was great, them falling in love while doing so was great too.
It is the contemporary part of the story that confused and annoyed me and I cannot say much without spoilers. I understood that most of my questions were answered at 80 percent of the story, but not all of them and I usually *hate* second person POV. Off the top of my head I remember one book where I did not hate it.
The second reason why I would not grade the book higher – too much violence. I mean, this is not a cozy story, I get it you need to show that Tyrants are really, REALLY bad people and you cannot overthrow the tyrants without violence, but at some point it became too much for me. There are also horror elements so beware.
Grade: B
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I think you liked this one better than I did. I agree the central storyline was excellent, but I found all the experimental stylistic choices around it distracting. It took me forever just to figure out who “You” was or how the occasional bolded sentence fragment connected to the rest of the text. When I wrote my review, I hoped that by sharing my ultimate interpretations, I would help readers because I wished someone had provided that to me. Was it helpful to you, or did you only read my review after reading the book?
The other thing I want to ask is whether you’ve read Vanished Birds, his first book. It is so, so good. I believe it was a straight A for me. It also has queer characters and is poetic and lyrical, but a lot easier to follow. I highly recommend it (the birds of the title aren’t literal birds but giant spaceships).
I have been waiting for another book from Jimenez for a long time and hoping one would be announced. So far, no such luck. I hope his career isn’t over. I do worry that TSCTW, being so ambitious, didn’t sell well and his publisher didn’t pick up his contract. I hope I am wrong about that.
No I read your review after I read the book. I didn’t even know you reviewed it till I was posting my review on GR and noticed the link to yours so I added to mine the note that you reviewed it as well. Yes deciphering whom bolded and italicized sentences belong to was also confusing and figuring out who you meant to be – I only realized it when book actually shared it at around eighty percent . I think I graded it a little higher because I still got a stronger emotional connection to main characters but overall I do agree . I have not read his first book no.
I think you might really like it, I hope you give it a try.