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The Spear Cuts Through Water
The Spear Cuts Through Water
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TSCTW: Wrap up
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Just finished, I loved it! One of my favorite fantasy novel I've read in the last few years!I felt that was epic in the original sense of the word, every "Day" introduced new concepts and showed new details of this world.
About the asides:
(view spoiler)
About the ending
(view spoiler)
As Seth stated, the POV changed WAY too much. I think Simon Jimenez had WAY too much fun playing with the POV of this novel. I am sure he changed the POV for a single paragraph. During the last couple couple days, the POV is almost incomprehensible. To be fair, I listened to the audio book on libro.fm and I think that would make the shifts in POV much harder. Also, I generally don't like horror and there more horror here then SF. So, not my cup of tea.
I had no trouble following the POV as the voices did change and the characters were pretty distinct.The bleed through seemed pretty intentional and appropriate for the characters.
I really enjoyed the POV changes. I mostly listened to the audible version and the narrator did an excellent job with voice changes / inflections to differentiate the POV.The story and world building were well done, but overall I felt the book was too long and rambling. I understand you need some extra detail for flavoring, but sometimes the story got a little off the track.
I've always believed books should come with a dial to adjust the level of info dumps.
Tamahome wrote: "I've always believed books should come with a dial to adjust the level of info dumps."Heh! Well said. I so want that for David Weber books.
Anyway, I'm fairly conflicted. Some of the author's stylistic choices really paid off. (view spoiler)[ When Jun and Keema walk into the theater and "you" hand them the spear so that it can be delivered to Shan, that's just cool. (hide spoiler)] I really feel like it justifies the whole frame story at the same time as it busts the concept of frame stories to dust. That was a great moment.
But the italics - the little interjections by members of the sunken theater's cast talking right to the audience - those I still don't get. Usually, it was something like: "the crowd scattered in fear. I was so afraid " and that felt pretty forced or even affected. I listened, so I don't know if it was all italicized, but (view spoiler)[ when the moon goddess became a bird and then a bear and did a whole first-person rampage while having her fingers eaten (hide spoiler)] I felt like the author switched the narrative perspective just so a character could say "I felt indescribable pain" instead of "they felt pain." I don't know, it never really clicked for me. Also, at this point, the narrator was just emoting the hell out of it and that was all just a bit too much.
Finally, the end. Before (view spoiler)[ the Keema/Jun consummation (hide spoiler)] there was a long bit about how everyone is just dust and to dust they will return and nothing really matters and stories don't really matter. And I felt like the true ending, the (view spoiler)[ love story (hide spoiler)] ending didn't really hold up to that? It didn't disprove the nihilistic point that came before and so I ended up with a bit too much of the feeling of 'what's the point?' It does mark a change from the classic fantasy where a hero saves the world, but maybe goes a bit too far in the other direction. Clearly, at the very least, the journey in this one mattered to (view spoiler)[ everyone in the theater (hide spoiler)] so why get so down about the whole thing?
Anyway, this one is at least type 2 fun. I feel like I accomplished something in reading even if I didn't really like it.