Rating:👍🫤
The Will of the Many and [The Strength of the Few] are the first two books in James Islington’s Hierarchy series. The third book, The Justice of One, is expected sometime in 2027.
I really enjoyed The Will of the Many (WotM) and somewhat enjoyed The Strength of the Few (SotF). I think whether I recommend this series or not will come down to the ability of the third (or more?) book(s) to stick the landing. As usual, spoilers ahead.
The WotM starts with Vis, real name Diago, working in a prison in Letens, a town in the Catenan Republic. The Republic is governed by the Hierarchy - a power structure with three pyramids of “will”. Will is people’s motivating life force, encompassing energy, strength, protection and healing abilities. Will can also be wielded and manipulated to control objects in world around you. There are three pyramids in the hierarchy, each with eight levels. Most people are base-level Octavii, who “cede” (give up half of their own will) to Septimii. Septimii each receive half the will from eight Octavii, and so have the equivalent will of 5 people: their own full will plus half the will of eight Octavii. But when Septimii cede half their will to Sextii (who receive 7 Septimiis will), they have only 2.5 people’s will. This continues up to a single Princeps at the top, who receives will directly from two Dimidii and indirectly from 46,232 people in the pyramid beneath them, for a total will of 430.25 people.
These three Senatorial pyramids encompassing about 130,000 people in Caten are the most important in the hierarchy, since the high up members sit in powerful political positions, but there are a number of other smaller pyramids as well.
It sounds complicated and it kind of is, but the system is introduced in a reasonable, incremental manner in the first book, and the exact math doesn’t matter so much.
The Hierarchy will-ceding system can definitely be read as a parallel to capitalism or taxation, as the people at the bottom willingly enter the system in order to receive protection, will-powered technological wonders, and governing rules such as “Birthright”, which bans the killing of humans, in exchange for their literal life force. But the hierarchy is extremely brutal - ceding itself is arduous, and punishment for crime is being put in to a Sapper, which drains ALL your will, leaving you in a catatonic suffering stupor naked atop a stone slab in a dank prison. The Hierarchy is highly imperial, forcefully absorbing greater and greater swaths of land into their system. The imperialism is led primarily by the Military senatorial pyramid, with the blessing of the Governance and Religion pyramids as well.
It is with this background in place that we find Vis, an ultra-talented orphan who was ripped from his family and Princedom in Suus at the hands of the Hierarchy, at his Letens prison. We learn that he fights in cage matches to save money on the side and is well-read and educated due to his royal upbringing. He’s amazing at their Chess-equivalent game Foundation, and really sexy and socially competent and all that - he’s the classic “amazing at everything orphan with a dark past” type familiar to those who have read The Kingkiller Chronicle (Kvothe), Mistborn (Vin), or Eragon.
Vis is swept up in to a scheme by a level-5 Quintus in the Governance pyramid, Ulciscor Telimus, who needs help finding out what happened to his brother Caeror at the Catenan Academy on the island of Solivagus. The Academy is a hyper-competitive school for the children of the Senatorial elite, preparing them to navigate the social complexity of the elite Catenan ranks and to wield will effectively once they graduate and are granted the ability to do so.
Vis is adopted by Ulciscor and immediately gets swept up in to a truly awesome series of badassery, like a hardcore Hogwarts. On top of Ulciscor’s scheme, there’s a whole subplot of anti-Hierarchy rebels, the Anguis, who want to use Vis for their own somewhat-mysterious goals.
The WotM is incredibly complicated now that I try to lay out even the basics here, but Islington does an excellent job with it. It was an engaging and exciting read!
Unfortunately, the complexity of the WotM is nothing compared to the SotF, where I think it kind of goes off the rails, at least for the depth that I’m able to engage at. In the SotF, we learn more about the motivations of the main characters attempting to use Vis in the WotM, and they are quite layered. Worst of all, though, we learn that oh, there’s actually not just one world, but three, and Vis has been cloned into all three worlds and is now living independent timelines in each.
So the entire world that you learned about and got invested in in the WotM? That’s only going to be covered in 1/3 of the SotF, and the other 2/3’s of the book are going to be introductions to and major plot developments in brand new worlds with different languages, social dynamics, governing structures and rules for how will behaves.
It’s not so bad that I abandoned the series altogether, and at first it was exciting seeing that Islington was actually pulling this multi-world, same character scheme off, but as I got deeper in to the second book, it incrementally lost my attention. There were moments that were as exciting and engaging as the first book, but they were fewer, and I found myself looking forward to being done.
I hope Islington can pull it all together nicely in the third (and final?) book in the series, and I’d say he has better than even odds of doing so, but I’m not positive it’ll stick the landing. I’ll be reading it, either way, probably after a serious multi-hour review of the plethora of plot-points from the preceding novels.