Tim Akers

The Spear Cuts Through Water is a breathtaking book. I just finished it and, honestly, I feel bad for whatever book I read next. It’s going to be tough to stand up to this kind of work.

That said… I can’t easily recommend this book to you. It’s not going to be for everyone. The pacing is slow, there are no chapters (only section breaks that usually aren’t section breaks at all), the prose is lyrical but sometimes dense. It violates nearly all the guidelines I set for a good book: The characters have little or no agency, the solutions to their problems are in no way hinted at before they are presented ex nihilo, the magic system is unfathomable, and the only promise that is kept is that this is a love story (a fact I had forgotten until the very end). The structure of the book defuses any kind of tension, since there is a clearly defined mechanism that bypasses any obstacle that the narrative requires.

So why is it one of the few books I’ve ever rated all five stars? Because it’s beautiful. Because the characters are heartbreaking and endearing and frustrating in equal measure. Because the prose is never overbearing yet endlessly evocative. Because the story, while epic, is told at an intimate scale. And the storytelling…

I don’t mind saying that I admire craft when it comes to writing. Not just line by line writing (which, in this book, is top notch) but also the formation of narratives, the layering of world, the small tactical choices made to each scene and setting, the development of character and revelation of relationships, that all work together to tell a story. Novel writing is a completely different skill than screenwriting, or game design, or any other form of storytelling. It is, in my opinion, the best of all those forms. And this book is written at such a high level of craft that it feels effortless. It’s so well done that it doesn’t even feel like the author is trying.

So that’s why this is a book I can’t recommend easily, but I do recommend with my whole heart. You’ll either hate it, or it will change the way you think about writing, about story, and maybe even about life.