The King Below, Enemy of the World, is dead. Will his successor save the world…or rule it? Jacob Riverson was once the greatest hero of an age. Cut down during what should have been the final battle against the King Below, he was condemned to centuries of torment as a Wraith Knight in the service of said monster. With the destruction of his master, Jacob finds his free will returning and … discovers he is in a world torn by civil war between the King Below’s former slaves and the heroes who “saved” them. Joining forces with the overly-idealistic but brilliant warrior Regina Whitetremor, Jacob must determine whether he has any place in the new world and whether his destiny is as a hero or monster. Or both.Wraith Knight is book one of the Three Worlds saga by C.T. Phipps.
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The premise I understood was something like the Dark Lord was defeated and the last of his Nazgûl regained free will. Knowing Phipps was a grimdark author, I also had every expectation of this idea being played out in gritty, serious way.
While technically accurate, the premise didn’t actual prepare me for the book I sat down to read, which differs significantly in tone from something like The Lord of the Rings in more ways than just being grimmer. Honestly, at first, it seems lighter (also, there’s a much higher level of magic present).
In fact, whatever you might expect, Wraith Knight will probably deliver something else.
The wit and self-awareness resonating throughout the novel instills the feeling of something I might have expected from Neil Gaiman, occasionally cut in with Whedon-like banter. The net result being an eminently readable experience I tore through quite quickly, while always vaguely aware of the deconstruction of fantasy going on around me.
The novel has an usual quality of, at first, seeming much lighter than it actually is. Our protagonist, the Wraith Knight Jacob Riverson, is a fallen hero desperate to restore himself both physically and morally after having spent centuries thralled to the King Below. He finds himself suddenly awakened into a changed world that has advanced in technology and which has seemingly benefited from social reforms.
Adrift in this new world and with fragment memories, Jacob quickly attaches himself to a rebel knight named Regina, and through her meets our final protagonist, Serah. The three of them begin a quest to undermine the Empress who slew the King Below because of her corruption. As one might expect, this eventually leads to the revelation that there is no clear good or evil in this world, not even the King Below. The further down the rabbit hole you go, the more the traditional high fantasy sense of good vs. evil seems utterly arbitrary.
And while typical grimdark fantasy handles this sort of thing by removing it from the equation entirely, as I said, this feels more like a deconstruction wherein Phipps uses the traditions and then subverts them.
Expect plenty of twists in the second half of the novel. Some I saw coming, some I didn’t.
I imagine among the best recommendation I can make for a book is to say I’m about to buy the sequel. And I’m about to buy the sequel.
Want to check out Wraith Knight?
Wraith Knight is an excellent fantasy that had me hooked from chapter one. Fantasy isn’t my normal genre, but Phipps never disappoints! I’ve listened to a few of his books and have a few others on my list to be listened to soon. I’ve loved them all so far. Great narration by Peter Berkrot.
Jacob Riverson was once the foremost knight in the fight against the King Below. But when he awakes centuries after his final battle, he is horrified to discover that he has been co-opted to fight for his enemy as the Wraith Knight of the title.
On one level, Wraith Knight takes a number of familiar fantasy tropes; knights, dragons, quests, etc. but inverts many of them. Many of the knights are revealed to have been brutal in their objectives, the latter quest is not to destroy an evil source of power but to claim one. But on another deeper level, it also examines themes of good and evil, how difficult it can be to tell one from the other and how you can’t really have one without the other.
Jacob remembers only fragments of his past but since the story is told in the first person, this works to the book’s advantage, since we get to learn the truth about Jacob at the same time he does. The accompanying drawback to this is that it can sometimes be difficult to fully connect with the character. Overall though, he is well enough written to maintain some sympathy. There are relatively few other characters, but each makes an impact on the plot. My favorite was probably the Trickster, a persona of the King Below that exists only in Jacob’s mind. Sometimes sarcastic, sometimes creepy but always entertaining.
There has obviously been a great deal of thought put into this world, its empires and race but I was left with the feeling that this book only scratched the surface of what there is to know. Likewise, while the book does finish at an appropriate point, there is still plenty of room for Jacob’s story to continue.
I’m looking forward to more.
A nice little twist on fantasy from the bad guy’s perspective, chock full of Phipps’ patented humor. This is what dark fantasy might look like if Marvel films tackled it, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s a good-sized book, but you’ll zip right through it.
Wraith Knight by C.T. Phipps is a book I was given to read but the review is voluntary. It is a good fantasy and different. I liked it because it had a wraith knight which I think is cool and it started out right away with dragons, my weakness, love dragons! Lots of magic, quests, adventure, a dead hero who’s dealing with what history recorded vs truth, how things changed since he has risen, and an elf-type warrior woman he is helping. It is pretty good with interesting combo and plot. I like the world building too.