Cover of The Will of the Many

The Will of the Many

by James Islington

My Rating:
Published
2023
Read
2025-12-02
Pages
720
Publisher
Simon and Schuster

Genres

FictionFantasy

Description

"At the elite Catenan Academy, where students are prepared as the future leaders of the Hierarchy empire, the curriculum reveals a layered set of mysteries which turn murderous in this new fantasy by bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington. Vis, the adopted son of Magnus Quintus Ulcisor, a prominent senator within the Hierarchy, is trained to enter the famed Catenan Academy to help Ulciscor learn what the hidden agenda is of the remote island academy. Secretly, he also wants Vis to discover what happed to his brother who died at the academy. He is sure the current Principalis of the academy, Quintus Veridius Julii, a political rival, knows much more than he's revealing. The Academy's vigorous syllabus is a challenge Vis is ably suited to meet, but it is the training in the use of Will, a practice that Vis finds abhorrent, that he must learn in order to excel at the Academy. Will, a concept that encompasses their energy, drive, focus, initiative, ambition, and vitality, can be voluntarily "ceded" to someone else. A single recipient can accept ceded Will from multiple people, growing in power towards superhuman levels. Within the hierarchy your level of Will, or legal rank, determines how you live or die. And there are those who are determined to destroy this hierarchal system, as well as those in the Academy who use it to gain dominance in internationally bestselling author James Islington's wonderfully crafted new epic fantasy series"--

My Review

This felt a lot like Red Rising only with its own unique taste and (I haven't read Red Rising for a while so my memory may be unfair) better executed in many ways. The main character is exceptional but with good reason to be within the narrative. The world is structured in an interesting way that also has a real life analogy that pushes a philosophical concept but in a subtle way that some readers might miss rather than screaming the moral at you. The characters are interesting and have depth - even the ones where the author spends little text and time on their background or motivations. The protaganist makes smart choices and mistakes can be attributed to the information he has at the time. The ending is (having not read the second book yet, it is always possible that will change my mind about the ending) the strongest part of the book which is something I always appreciate. "Wow them in the end, and you got a hit." was true with Adaptation and its true here. And I liked the book before I got to the ending. Solid read - highly recommend.