The Will of the Many
James Islington
Hardcover / eBook
ISBN: 9781982141172
Saga Press, May 2023, 630 pages

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another review. This month it’s time to find your favorite couch, chair, or beach and settle in for the first book in an epic new series—The Will of the Many, by James Islington.

Weighing in at a robust 630 pages, The Will of the Many has the bones of a fantasy epic ala The Stormlight Archive or The Wheel of Time, but it doesn’t quite fit the traditional fantasy mold (in good ways). To begin with, the protagonist, Vis, has absolutely no interest in utilizing Will, the system of magic in which people cede a part of their own power to someone above them in an ever-shrinking pyramid (for reasons that become abundantly clear very early on), but soon he may not have a choice. Vis’ place in the Catenan Republic is not a happy one, and his past is looking to catch up with him.

Secondly, I would only consider the setting “fantasy” in that there is a system of “magic” involved, because from any other angle it looks remarkably similar to the Second Triumvirate of the Roman Republic, except in The Will of the Many the Catenan Republic managed to conquer the entire world. Political intrigue and backstabbing abound, social standing is almost as important as military might, and conquered peoples are restless under the yoke of Catenan rule, which gives the book a very familiar feel for anyone who has studied that time period in history (it strongly reminded me in setting of Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera).

The third deviation from traditional epic fantasy, and it’s one I thought the author handled extraordinarily well, is that for all the epic scope of the Catenan Republic, the lens of the story is very firmly focused on Vis. There are no point of view shifts, and after the first act, surprisingly little travel, but that doesn’t lessen the grand scale of the tale. Vis is engaged in grand acts that have the potential to reshape his entire world, but they feel human and grounded—a person driven to heroism, rather than one seeking it out. Where Vis ends up by the end of this first book feels completely natural, but it is a journey of small steps, each necessary at the time.

One thing that I really enjoyed about The Will of the Many was that Islington really takes the time to make his characters complex and motivated by a multitude of factors. I was never quite sure if someone’s professed intentions were what they actually were, which fits the secretive and conniving setting perfectly, and it kept me on my toes the whole way through. Despite that, Vis also manages to form meaningful relationships with a broad array of characters, some of whom initially seem no more than background clutter, and the various developments among Vis and his friends/enemies build to some excellent character growth.

The second thing I liked was Vis’ ambivalence about the Catenan Republic. He wants to hate them (justifiably so), but at the same time, the glories the Republic has created are undeniably attractive and call to a part of Vis’ soul. It reminded me quite a bit of Martine Arkady’s A Memory Called Empire, in that there is the same sense of longing for a world without the oppressor, but the world with the oppressor is unbearably interesting even though it will probably kill you.

This leads me to the last thing I want to talk about, which is that The Will of the Many is also a glorious deconstruction of the banal evil of apathy. The Catenan Republic engages in horrific acts, yet none of them would be possible without the explicit acceptance of its citizens (quite literally, as it is their ceding of Will which supports the Republic’s military might), and Vis finds himself having to weigh the consequences of what revolution truly means. Islington does a fantastic job presenting arguments for and against the violent overthrow of an oppressive state, and I can’t wait to see how it eventually ends up being resolved.

Overall, The Will of the Many is well plotted, well paced, and delivers enough intrigue and action for any epic fantasy fan to enjoy in a compelling, unique setting. Definitely read this one all the way through, and then join me in the wait for the next one, because I’m confident Islington is only going to make it more interesting from here.

Read if: you always wanted to go to ancient Roman wizard school; you feel there has to be a better way than burning it all down; you enjoy making fun of your teacher in a language he can’t understand.