The Will of the Many (Hierarchy) Hardcover – May 23, 2023

The Licanius Trilogy is one of my favorite trilogies, and I'd been anxiously awaiting something new from James Islington ever since finishing the The Light of All that Falls that could fill that void of having finished one of the best series. And fortunately, The Will of the Many more than delivered. This book blew my mind in all of the best possible ways, and I still can't believe some of the things that happened. I genuinely still think about this book almost daily and have the worst book hangover ever trying to find something else to read after.The Will of the Many follows Vis Telimus, an orphaned young man who is currently working at a prison when we first meet him, regularly fights in tournaments on the side for extra money, and vows to never let the empire take his Will from him to power their Hierarchy (don't worry, I'll explain what this is later in the review!). Vis' entire family was killed by the Hierarchy and now he is set upon a path to uncover truths of the Catenan Republic, and along the way he is forced into a variety of different paths to undertake and additional mysteries to uncover, all of which make for a story that has something new to discover on nearly every page.Vis has to be one of my new favorite protagonists. I feel like so many fantasy stories that follow young adults portray them as reckless, naïve, or otherwise just not quite as mature as they are implied to be and I end up very frustrated with them. Not so in The Will of the Many! Vis is my dream come true. Vis is angry, determined, and ridiculously sharp. He knows that there is no room for mistakes at just about any step of the way towards his goals. He is not shy and is not afraid to put himself out there when necessary to make a mark or achieve what he knows is needed. Even when Vis does make mistakes, there is a calculated coolness to him that is so captivating and admirable to watch. While reading The Will of the Many, I quite literally kept remarking to my husband at various intervals how much I loved Vis. He's almost ruthless in a way that I love, but still very much has strong convictions and a moral compass that I found admirable in how he did his best to never step over the boundaries he set up for himself.There are a lot of moral quandaries and issues that pop up in this book, from the rebels to his own struggles at school, and I appreciated the way Islington shared his inner monologue and the frustrations he went through in his thought process to decide what was the next best step in his journey. I could see where Vis maybe seems "too good" at times at everything he does, but I think I would disagree only because it's very clear he has trained and worked hard to be as good as he is. From his youth until this point, he has constantly pushed himself and studied to be where he is, which makes things fit for me--not to mention that he does make some costly mistakes at times. Vis is a wonderfully complex and multidimensional character that I cannot wait to meet up with again in the sequel.There are also a variety of supporting characters that were just as multi-faceted and well-developed, such as Ulcisor, a mysterious man who completely derails Vis' plans and subsequently sets Vis on a new path; and Callidus and Eidhin, two friends Vis acquires along the way. I loved Callidus and Eidhin about as much as I loved Vis, and I thought the two brought so much balance to Vis' own personality, as well as added much-needed color and interest to his journey. Both Callidus and Eidhin come from very unique backgrounds compared to each other and to Vis, and I really appreciated getting to learn about their own experiences and how they have been shaped into who they are today, and how those experiences also influence their current actions. Also, they were both hilarious in their own ways with their personalities and how they all interacted with one another and it brought so much joy to my reading of this book. Ulcisor is much more enigmatic and I still genuinely cannot decide if I trust him or not, but I appreciate his consistency and ability to really focus on getting done what he needs to get done.The magic system is both very simple and a little bit confusing, but I'll do my best to explain it as accurately and succinctly as possible. The Catenan Republic is ruled and ordered by the Hierarchy, a powerful group who control the Republic via pyramidal systems of power. People have what is known as Will, which is essentially like a life force consisting of your energy and abilities, and Will can be ceded to more powerful figures in society to in turn make them more powerful. There is an entire system based on this that starts with the lowest ranking, Octavus, which is where most civilians stand. An Octavus cedes half of their Will to a Septimus, who receives will from eight people at Octavus ranking, and so on and so forth all the way up to the Princeps, who receives will from a total of over forty thousand people and is considered the most powerful. It's still taking my brain a little bit of work to really ground myself in how this all works, but I have no doubt that future books will play with this system much more and we as readers will really have a chance to dive deeper into this magic system to learn more about it and all of its implications for how it works. There are a lot of aspects of the Will and the magic system to explore and that I could talk about in more depth, but for the sake of brevity in this review (brevity which I'm sure has already been surpassed, sorry!), I'll hold off an let you explore it for yourself when you read this book.The setting of the Will of the Many is fascinating. It takes place in a post-Cataclysm world where the people seem to still somewhat be picking up the pieces form the previous age and have yet to attain the levels of advancement and technology that previously existed. As you can probably tell from many of the terms in this book, this is a very Roman-inspired setting that shares many similarities, and just as many dissimilarities. There are so many details provided for this world, many of which probably have meaning we don't even understand yet, and others that serve to cement the world-building in order to successful create a grounded, fully-realized world. We get a lot of hints of other influences as well, such as with Eidhin and Vis' ethnicities and cultures hinted at being less common at the Academy compared to the rest, and I'm very curious to find out more about how all of that will continue to be interwoven into future installments.We don't travel to too many different locations in this book, but of the places that we do get to travel to with Vis I found there to be a lot of variety and potential for future books to explore more. Every time the story did take a turn into a different location, I found myself craving to learn more about that location or what it's history was and it's current status within the Hierarchy. I am assuming the future installments will explore much more of this world and I can't wait for that because of how rich the world feels, as well as the fact that I feel like there are so many secrets and mysteries to uncover. And that's truly one of the most exciting things about this book–I know there are endless ancient mysteries lurking and the foreshadowing and hints of things to come that we get in this first book having me dying to keep uncovering more.Although a good amount of time is spent in locations other than the Catenan Academy, the majority of the time is spent at this Academy on the isolated island of Solivagus, and I really enjoyed our time spent there. As much as I've loved school settings in the past, I have admittedly found myself get a little fatigued of them and the consistent tropes (the bully, the gruff teacher who ends up aiding the student, the mean teacher, etc.), and I was so thrilled when I found that this book didn't really follow those tropes in the ways I'm used to! Sure, there are always school elements that are going to be present, but this school has such a unique setup for the levels of students within it that nothing really felt like any other book I'd read, and I loved that so much.The pacing of this book is genuinely, in my opinion, as close to perfect as you can get. There's a near-perfect balance of action, character development, world-building, and dialogue sprinkled throughout. I had a hard time putting this book down when I had to do other things in my life, and I was almost constantly counting down until when I got to pick it up again. That being said, it was also one of those books that I think I inadvertently read extra slowly because I wanted it to last as long as possible, and even doing that I never felt that the book moved too slowly or rushed in any place. I really think there's a little something for everyone: a magic systems that has a lot of different ideas and concepts to unpack, strong, careful characterization and development, world-building that tied into the narrative effortlessly and did not feel like excessive info-dumping, and high-intensity moments that included both action-packed events and moments that weren't necessarily high action, but still very intense. All of these together created such a consistent flow of movement along the narrative that it felt like a truly distinctive read that I was utterly engrossed in.Lastly, I just have to say that this does end on a bit of a cliffhanger. It's not like literally hanging off a cliff style, but it's enough that I'm chomping at the bit to get more. It's absolutely worth it though because the way it leaves us is one of those places where it'll lend itself to so much fun discussion and theorizing in the interim period between now and getting our hands on the sequel.The Will of the Many is a resounding success in the fantasy genre and is sure to become a classic. I would love to rave about this book more, but rather than continuing to read my words about it, I would highly suggest you go pick up a copy of The Will of the Many and read those words about it instead! Overall, it's an easy five stars from me!

TLDR: If you loved Licanius, you will love this. If you didn't love Licanius, you may still enjoy this but it doesn't read as "a radically different author." His character work and prose are marginally better, which may be enough for you to enjoy or may not.Holy moly. 5 stars. Let's get that out of the way. Loved it and 5 stars.This review is spoiler-free, with lots of comparisons to Licanius trilogy ahead because I had very high expectations going in after reading and loving that trilogy.This book started out a tad rough. 1st person present POV. The world felt simple (with castes that reminded me of YA dystopia from the 2010s). And I didn't like the MC for a long time. He was arrogant and not in a charming way. He also made several choices that I couldn't relate to or understand and that felt too noble given his circumstances.But I was curious where things would go and had some suspicions that I wanted confirmed (spoiler alert: I was wrong about everything in the best way lol). Once you get to the academy, everything starts to get GOOD. And in hindsight, I see that everything in the early part of the book was 100% necessary.Overall, it was a fun, gripping read. All of the good parts greatly outweighed the meh parts for me. I loved it, and I highly recommend it if you like Robert Jackson Bennett, Brandon Sanderson, and/or Islington's Licanius trilogy. (If you loved Licanius, you almost certainly will love this too. It's a worthy spiritual successor!)Highlights- Meticulous plotting on par with Licanius- Dark academia setting (after a lot of setup—be patient), and all the tropes that come with the setting done to perfection with a number of surprises/new takes- Fun, well-earned friendship dynamic. I loved the friends that the MC made at the academy and how he eventually made friends with them all- Heroic optimistic tone. This is not to say everything's peachy keen or that there's no darkness (there were some excellent horror elements here and there!)—but you have a hope that good might just have a chance at prevailing over evil at the end.- Solid, steady pacing that ebbs and flows naturally.- The worldbuilding is WAY more complex and interesting than what it first appears- You have this sense of not knowing entirely what's going on, but also full confidence that it'll all make sense eventually- Excellent twists and turns, and excellent payoff throughout the book. You don't have to wait to the very end for every single reveal or development. There were lots of jaw dropping moments sprinkled throughout the book.- THAT FREAKING EPILOGUE. This is becoming a classic James Islington move, y'all. So well done!Drawbacks:- 1st person present POV. Not a fan, but got used to it.- Slow start. I wasn't hooked until the MC got to the academy ~30% in.- Most of the characters felt a little flat and under-developed (similar to Licanius imo)- Prose was very tell-y. This is what annoyed me in the first 25% so much—being constantly told by the MC what everyone was thinking and feeling, whether they believe his lies, etc.- We didn't actually learn much about the magic (how it works or what it can do), despite 75% of this book taking place in the academy for magic! lol The story worked perfectly as is, but it was very surprising.All in all, the good parts GREATLY outweighed the meh parts and little quirks in the writing style for me, so I'm extremely happy with this book. If any of these downsides are major downsides for you, your mileage may vary.I'm dying for the next one and I won't even mind rereading this before book 2 comes out someday (which is surprising because I usually dread having to reread before new releases!). Even the beginning part that I didn't like so much, I'm sure will have little gems hidden that I missed the first time.5 stars based on overall enjoyment/satisfaction with the story. Highly recommend, especially if you enjoyed Licanius.I am voluntarily reviewing this after receiving an advance copy from NetGalley and Gallery Books. Thank you!

In this book Islington creates a fascinating and complex world modeled on the Roman Empire. Unique and well thought out magic system. The main characters are all well written and have enjoyable character development. I highly recommend this book.

I was hesitant to read this book—I usually go for fantasy with female leads and a good amount of romance, and the length felt a little intimidating. But wow, was I wrong to hesitate.The Will of the Many follows Vis, an orphan with a hidden past who’s pulled into an elite academy where power is drawn from the collective “Will” of the people. We watch as he climbs the ranks of the academy, all while unraveling political secrets and navigating a world that is devastatingly unfair to those it claims to protect.There’s only a touch of romance, but I didn’t even miss it—I was fully invested in Vis’ journey. He’s a brilliantly written, layered character, and watching him maneuver through the relentless systems around him was both gripping and emotional. The academy setting is intense and immersive, and the slow-burn pacing gives the story room to breathe, build, and absolutely deliver.This book is a masterpiece. It’s a slow-burn, high-stakes ride with twists, tension, and payoff that feels incredibly earned. If you’re into Red Rising or The Maze Runner, this hits in the best possible way. It’s thoughtful, sharp, and chef’s kiss—a story that sticks with you long after the final page. I’m already counting down the days until the sequel.