The Bookwyrm's Review of Wraith King by C.T. Phipps

 

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Rating:9/10 Stars

Synopsis

"The final battle is just the beginning."

Jacob Riverson, Regina Whitetremor, and Serah Brightwaters have assembled the greatest army the Northern Wasteland has ever achieved but it still may not be enough. The tyrant, Empress Morwen, has gathered all of the forces of the Southern Continent to invade along with an army of airships as well as enslaved divine spirits. It is a battle that will determine the fate of all Three Worlds.

But is the battle a cover for something much worse? After a horrifying disaster, Jacob is left broken and injured in a way that he's never felt before. His powers weakened and his spirit spent, he receives an offer that he cannot afford to refuse. But this deal comes with allies he cannot trust and a cure that may be worse than the disease. 

Review

Wraith King, the third installment in C.T. Phipps' Wraith Knight series, was on my radar for a while, as it is my favorite of his various series, even his fantastic Supervillainy books. While it continues the story line that the previous books started, there are developments in this book that I would have never predicted. In fact, these revelations about the true nature of their reality put a whole new face on the entire story arc, and also ties it into the author’s greater multiverse in some rather unexpected ways.

Kicking the story off with a climactic battle was an interesting choice. If a story is going to start off with a battle that can effect the entire world, the author has to have something to top it further in the story, and in this case, that something is to reveal the true nature of the entire reality of the universe, something that the reader will not see coming. There are deaths you certainly won’t see coming, and new alliances that completely shift the balance of power in the world. In fact, it's these new alliances that reveal that reality is not what we have been led to believe, and really expand on the history of the world, as well showing the true nature and motivations of the gods. It leads to revelations about Jacob's past that he surely doesn't want to face, but must if he wants to save all that he loves.

The characters are some of my favorites in the fantasy genre. Jacob RIverson is such a contradiction. Jacob has many memories of his previous life, when he was a knight dedicated to the god of justice and light, which makes an interesting contrast to his current gig as the replacement god of evil. But things are so twisted that the so called god of evil is trying to bring justice to the truly evil, who happen to be disciples of the god of justice. Jacob finds that his previous life was not what he thought, and he was not the force of good he always thought he was, and it wreaks havoc with what he has always believed about himself.

The secondary characters really round out the story. Jacob's wives, Regina and Serah, each bring their own power and personalities to the fray, and their motivations are so well built up over the course of the series. What happens to them after the battle is completely unexpected, and their path is not one I would expect.

The addition of their enemy, Empress Morwen, who has an abiding hatred for Jacob, is also unexpected, especially as she finds she has some common cause with Jacob after the battle and subsequent revelations. I would have never imagined this turn of events, but the author spins it out so well, you just find yourself absorbed in her story as well. The rest of the characters, on both sides, really just help flesh the story out, and it's left in doubt until the end who will survive the final confrontation.

The audiobook version is narrated by Samuel Hoke. He does a good job bringing the various characters to life, and he gives them each their own unique voices with a variety of accent, cadences and tones. his narrative pacing is excellent, and never drops into a Ben Stein monotone. It's definitely a version I recommend.

With it's change in tone and scope, this could have gone wrong in the hands of a less skilled author. In this case, though, it just helped expand an already expansive universe, tying it into his other series in a variety of ways even more firmly. Normally I'm not a fan of multiple universes and timelines, but in this case, it makes sense in a lot of ways and just creates a better story. I am excited to see where it goes from here, and I highly recommend checking this series out.