“The Spear Cuts Through Water is many, many things. It’s a spellbinding tribute to oral storytelling and folklore. It’s a thoughtful exploration of identity and family. But more than anything, The Spear Cuts Through Water is a love story, and one unlike anything you’ve read before.”—Polygon “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2022”
“[The Spear Cuts Through Water] is a marvel. Jimenez’s command of prose and playfulness of thought is used to incredible effect to show how oral traditions can transform a tale. This book must be read to be believed.”—Vulture
“The Spear Cuts Through Water is remarkably rich. . . . This novel is an astonishing feat, one that lovers of sophisticated story won’t want to miss.”—Chicago Review of Books
“The Spear Cuts Through Water is beautifully, lovingly crafted.”—BookPage
“A rich and sophisticated voice emerging to transform the genre . . . Jimenez has herewith delivered something utterly individual. . . . A wild chase and odyssey (compressed into five days) which you must read to believe.”—Locus
“Gorgeously written, The Spear Cuts Through Water is unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It is a fable, a dream world, a love story, and a meditation on the nature of humanity all wrapped into one. Simon Jimenez has written the rare kind of book that changes the way you see the world, that makes you pause and appreciate the beauty in every small moment of life and, even, death.”—Evelyn Skye, New York Times bestselling author of The Crown’s Game
“Readers looking for self-aware fantasy with folkloric overtones and the sensibilities of an epic poem—look no further. Jimenez’s novel is an intricate, multilayered story speaking in multiple tongues at once. Fans of diverse, nuanced epics like Black Sun and the Broken Earth series will find this worth their while.”—Suyi Davies Okungbowa, author of Son of the Storm
“Jimenez has raised the bar for every fantasy writer working; wholly unique, dreamy yet grounded, triumphant and bittersweet, The Spear Cuts Through Water is a tremendous achievement from beginning to end.”—Martin Cahill, writer on Batman: The Blind Cut
“Reading Simon Jimenez’s The Spear Cuts Through Water feels like dreaming an impossibly epic movie, cinematic yet fluidly surreal, a mythic tale of clashing gods that never loses its human heart.”—Indra Das, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of The Devourers
“Lyrical, evocative, part poem, part prose—not to be missed by anyone, especially fans of historical fantasy and folktale. It’s both like nothing and everything you’ve ever read: a tale made from the threads that weave the world, and all of us, together.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Beautiful prose and inventive worldbuilding.”—Publishers Weekly
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