The Will of the Many (Part 2 - Worldbuilding & Theme)
Welcome back, everyone, to Part 2 of our review series for The Will of the Many (Many). Please feel free to pop back to Part 1 if you haven’t read it already or else need a refresher. Otherwise, let’s dive right in.
STATS
Title: The Will of the Many
Series: Hierarchy (Book 1)
Author(s): James Islington
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: January 2025
Publisher: Saga Press (imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Rating: 10 / 10
SPOILER WARNING
Minor, unmarked spoilers for Many will be provided throughout this review. I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. Heavy spoilers will be confined to clearly labeled sections.
No spoilers will be provided for the sequel, The Strength of the Few. That book is not yet released as of the time of this review series, and this review was written prior to me reading any sample chapters.
MAGIC SYSTEM
We need to discuss this before anything else, because it is key to understanding this entire setting.
Will
The magic system within this setting shares a lot of qualities with the twinned systems of Essence and Kan in The Licanius Trilogy.
Manifestation of an abstract idea.
Manipulated via mental discipline and willpower rather than spells.
Can be used to create magical items (and full-on magical infrastructure) by being bound into objects.
Islington really seems to have a strong preference for this type of system. At the same time, though, Will is not merely a rehash of Essence / Kan. Essence / Kan was very mystical in nature, giving its wielders powers that would otherwise be beyond human means (and, in the case of magical items / infrastructure, tools that would otherwise be impossible for humans to engineer). Will, by contrast, is just scaled-up human ability. Even as its most supernatural, there is a logic through line to what it does … and when exceptions are made, they are meant to be awe-inspiring, if not outright terrifying.
Powers
At its most basic level, Will usage enhances the physical strength of the wielder. This affects the literal strength of the wielder’s muscles, physical endurance, and the amount of physical punishment that the wielder can take without injury. Late in the book, we’re explicitly told that this doesn’t translate into speed, though I suspect this is purely a matter of reaction times (since Will users don’t gain muscle mass, so this isn’t a situation where getting physical stronger would hinder mobility). A slightly more advanced application is to enhance one’s physical senses or even compensate for lost senses.
The most important usage of Will, and the one that allowed the Catenan Republic to gain dominance in the setting, is the ability to imbue Will into objects. How this works is kept exceptionally vague. However, we are shown that imbued objects can:
Move under their own power, often in defiance of gravity
Serve as alarms that transmit back to the person who imbued them
Protect the holder of the object from other uses of Will
Transmit messages over long distances
The grandest example of imbuing are the Transvects: enormous airships that function like trains, flying in straight lines between designated waypoints to move people and cargo. (If you look at the version of the book cover used with the Amazon Kindle listing, that thing floating in the midground is a Transvect.)
Hierarchy
Will doesn’t spawn from nothing. It needs to be ceded, as a deliberate choice, from a living human. This is where that table we covered in Part 1 comes into play. The table itself isn’t actually needed, though, as the fundamentals are spelled out in Chapter VI, after we’ve already gotten some practical examples of Will use.
Any of the children back at the orphanage could have explained that a Septimus has eight Octavii ceding half their Will to them, a Sextus has seven Septimii ceding half of their collected Will, and so on up the pyramid through Quintus, Quartus, Tertius, Dimidius, and finally, Princeps. Each level higher becoming increasingly powerful. And the older children could do the resulting mathematics, too. A Septimus wields the equivalent of five people’s Will: four from their combined Octavii, plus their own. That halves when they’re ceding to a Sextus. A Sextus, therefore, starts with the Will of more than eighteen people. And so on.
This has a negative impact on the health of the Octavii, leaving them in a perpetual state of exhaustion and shortening their lives by at least a decade. The Septimii upward, by contrast, benefit from immense strength and endurance in day to day life, even if they aren’t actively using the Will at their disposal for imbuing.
A small touch that I really like about in this story is a symbol of rank: sunglasses (though they aren’t referred to as such in the story). Only an individual from the rank of Sextus upward is allowed to own a pair. The reason why isn’t explicitly spelled out; however, at multiple point in this book, we see that the eyes of Will user (specifically, one who is at least a Sextus) turn black when they are actively tapping into their accessible pool of power. The implication is that these sunglasses serve not only as a status symbol but a courtesy to spare others from the disturbing sight of the eye color change. (I can’t remember any examples of Septimii having their eyes change color, yet it’s possible I simply forgot.)
Birthright & Sappers
The Catenan Republic holds human life as sacred, with killing seen as abhorrent even situations of self-defense. Part of this is undoubtedly linked to the desperate need to rebuild the population (more on that in Setting). However, while not explicitly stated, it becomes clear as the book progresses that a good part of it is that Will is far more valuable than human life.
This is where the Sappers come in. These devices are introduced to us in Chapter I, with Vis working at a Sapper prison facility. They put the victim into a waking coma, leaving just enough Will to keep the victim alive while siphoning off the rest for the Hierarchy’s infrastructure. If the visuals and the description weren’t unpleasant enough, Chapter I also sees a prisoner woken from a Sapper, at which point he delivers this line.
“… being on this slab isn’t like sleeping. It’s worse. You’re almost asleep. All the time. But awake enough to recognise that things are happening. You know your mind should move faster. You know the world is passing you by.” There are tears, now. Desperation. He’s blubbering. “Five years. Five years. Look at me!”
This exceptionally grim bit of worldbuilding really colors in the setting while also serving as meaningful stakes for Vis down the line (more on that when we get to Plot).
Soft Magic
While the mathematics of Will at first seem like a foundation for a Hard Magic system, Islington provides himself with an out from providing hard or consistent numbers. In Chapter VI, on the same page that he breaks down the math of ceding Will, we learn what Vis knows about imbuing.
Imbuing objects—controlling them through mental effort—is where the true power of the Hierarchy lies, exponentially increasing the efficacy of that strength for anyone who can do it. I can still only guess at how much, though. My studies at Suus only ever referenced estimates based on rumour and observation. And the Hierarchy doesn’t exactly shout the secrets of high-level Will usage to the masses. I’ve eked out an understanding of some of the methods they use, over the years, but the exact costs and efficiencies surrounding it all remain murky to me at best.
More important than this, though, is how Islington actually uses Will to resolve the plot … which is to say, he doesn’t.
Vis is not ceding Will or receiving it from anyone. Most of the characters he encounters while at the Magic School aren’t (only the teachers are allowed access to Will, and students purely discuss theory and train their minds and bodies for when they are able to access it). The vast majority of Vis’s brushes with Will are either:
Action sequences of him fighting against or evading Will users, wherein the only variable that actually matters is that they have superhuman strength while he doesn’t.
Using imbued objects, such as Transvects, where the important rules that the audience needs to understand are independent of the Will calculation.
There certainly is discussion, at least in the background, of how the details mechanics of Will operate. At multiple points in the school story, topics related to this are mentioned as things Vis is studying. It’s just that none of it is actually important to resolving the narrative. We’re not being expected to remember and apply throwaway lines for the resolution of the plot ot make sense.
The one place where unexplained elements of the magic system are actually important to the plot are the exceptions I mentioned earlier. The first act of this story has Vis encounter a man wielding godlike power, seemingly fueled by Will, that there is no logical explanation for. As the story progresses, Vis also delves into multiple ancient ruins filled with strange sights and magic / technology that doesn’t appear to operate by the established rules. The key detail here is that Vis doesn’t understand these things. They are meant to frighten him. He is out of his depth and struggling to make sense of these things. Islington isn’t breaking his own rules or opening plot holes. Instead, he’s providing a glimpse of a deeper lay of the story’s reality, one that is beyond the ability of the protagonist to understand as of yet.
All this is to say that this is a book of Soft Magic, and it is a book where Soft Magic is done right. Magic creates problems or provides context for them, but it doesn’t resolve them. Vis must rely on his mundane physical capabilities and his wit to overcome obstacles, with the magic system providing, at most, an explanation for how specific tools at his disposal are able to exist.
SETTING
Catenan Republic / Hierarchy
The Hierarchy is a civilization built entirely around achieving and maintaining dominance through Will-based tools and infrastructure. They had assimilated most of the known world - so much, in fact, that the only civilization that seems to exist outside of it is some place called Jatiere, which explicitly has only an “embassy” for the Hierarchy. This spread seems to be motivated primarily by a desire to acquire more Will, as we’re Shown that the first thing the Hierarchy does upon taking over a place is apply pressure to encourage the populace to become Octavii and cede Will into the system.
The government of the Hierarchy is built around three “senatorial pyramids”: Governance (who handle various administrative duties, like the Census), Military (self-explanatory), and Religion (whose role is never quite spelled out, but they “run the orphanages”, are in charge of the Magic School, and since religious duties seem to be assigned by the state in this setting, they would presumedly be responsible for those as well). These three pyramids are constantly clashing with one another over influence.
There are very clear Roman influences to the Hierarchy. Aside from the heavy use of Latin, there are multiple examples of a “bread and circuses” policy at play. In the span of the year in which the story takes place, Vis attends no fewer than three major festivals, one of which features a “naumachia” (gladiatorial naval battle). It’s also mentioned at parts that the Hierarchy dangles the hope of climbing up through the Hierarchy to keep the lower ranks of the system in line. In theory, any Octavii can climb up to become a Septimus or higher. In practice, the Republic limits the available positions at higher ranks. There’s a mention late in the book that the population of Octavii is actually far more massive than the number of Princeps (and, thus, the math of the Hierarchy system) would otherwise indicate.
My One Complaint
There is one detail about this setting that bothers me in its execution. Namely, Islington isn’t consistent about the plight of the Octavii.
We’re Shown early on how the Octavii suffer, how they deal with constant exhaustion due to ceding Will and how this shortens their lives. This detail fades in the background very quickly and almost seems to be forgotten. It does surface later in a situation where Islington wants to highlight how much Vis hates this whole system. It’s just that, for far too much of the book, Islington Shows us that Octavii seem to be doing okay, outside of being in a poorer socio-economic class without any political voice.
This was a point that made me seriously consider whether to kick this book down from a 10/10 to a 9.5/10. I ultimately decided to let it go because it ultimately does make sense. The parts in the story where the plight of the Octavii is seemingly ignored are also the ones where Vis has other things on his mind. At the start of the story, avoiding being made into an Octavii is his only priority; when the plot kicks off, being consigned to a Sapper becomes a more pressing threat; and when the plight of the Octavii is reasserted, he is having the ugliness of Hierarchy rubbed in his face again. Hammering on the misery wouldn’t really add anything. Showing us Octavii who are content with their lot in life also added to the complexity of the setting, which is important for the Themes.
The Cataclysm
The Catenan Republic is not the first civilization to use Will. Three hundred years prior to the start of the story, an event known only as the Cataclysm wiped out a great civilization that had far greater mastery of this power. Records of this event and what came before are so sparse that history effectively reset, as explained in Chapter VI:
No one knows what caused the Cataclysm, the world-spanning disaster three centuries ago that left less than five people in every hundred alive. Most of the survivors were mere children, too; records to emerge out of the chaotic decades that followed were few, and the ones that did recalled towns filled with the dead. Cities burning. Whole nations erased in a moment.
But almost nothing of any of the times before that.
The Hierarchy actively researches and makes use of whatever techniques or technology from the pre-Cataclysm civilization that they can get their hands on. The artifacts used to allow Will to be ceded in the first place are the relic of that era. Early on, it’s revealed that the reason the Magic School is built on a specific island is so that Religion can claim exclusive jurisdiction over some pre-Cataclysm ruins that are also on the island.
Anguis
The Anguis are the plucky Rebels fighting against the Evil Empire that is the Hierarchy - and in their minds, everyone who is not supporting their cause is an enemy combatant.
We don’t learn a lot about the specifics of the Anguis’s disagreement with the Hierarchy. It isn’t a matter of opposing the system of ceding Will, as they freely make use of the power themselves. We also learn from an Anguis operative whom Vis has a chance to speak to that they don’t want to topple the whole Hierarchy system, merely replace the leadership so that policy chances can be enacted from there.
Unlike with, say, the vagueness of the religious clash in The City of Brass, I don’t think this vagueness is a problem. The precise motivation for why the Anguis fight against the Hierarchy really isn’t important to understanding this story. What matters is the Anguis’s philosophy of the ends justifying the means and their belief that the people at the bottom of the system are every bit as guilty as those at the top. This is important for the Themes, as we’ll get into below. What’s more, this outlook is enough to establish them as a threat to Vis. He’s just a guy trying to survive day-to-day, so the violent extremism of this faction that see him as the enemy simply because he doesn’t help them is enough to understand the danger he’s in whenever they cross paths.
The Catenan Academy
Referred to throughout most of this narrative as the Academy, this is the Magic School setting for our story. It is the premiere educational institution of the Hierarchy, an 18-month training program to groom the children of the Hierarchy elites as they come of age and accept their roles within the government system. Students are trained in philosophy, mathematics, the scientific theories of Will usage, as well as being trained in physical fitness and combat. An important test within this system is the Labyrinth, a complex puzzle where students are chased through a mass while using a Will-imbued gauntlet to rearrange the walls and thus hinder pursuers.
What I really like about the Academy is that it makes sense. This isn’t an American liberal arts university masquerading as a grimdark military school. The Academy exists to finish the education of people who have been groomed from birth to become cogs within a great system of Will users. Every class and training exercise correlates to either one’s ability to serve effectively within the government or the mental and physical readiness needed to effectively manipulate Will. The (official) purpose of the Labyrinth, in particular, is to force students to push their minds to bodies in the limit, the way they might have to do while using Will in a crisis. Even the cutthroat tournament that serves as the final test for the more advanced classes is meant to test the student’s leadership abilities and capacity for political intrigue.
There’s also the matter of school drama. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in Plot, but for now, I just want to note that the Academy is internally structured like a pyramid, with the elite Class Three containing just six students while Classes Four through Six progressively double that number (until one hits Class Seven, where there is no limit on the number of students. There is a great deal of competition over rank, and Vis needs to climb the ranks from Class Seven to Class three as the story progresses. However, it’s important to note that this is not a Murder School. The ladder climbing is very much a matter of outwitting people. The only danger posed by this ladder-climbing are consequences external to the school that Vis will face if he can’t make it into Class Three.
I’ll have more to say about the Magic School elements when we get to Plot. For now, the only other detail I’ll note is that the classes remind me of stories of how Greek philosophers taught their students. We’re not getting a different teacher for each subject. Instead, each class has its own professor who handles all of the subjects and moderates debates among the students.
PLOT-SPECIFIC DETAILS (Heavy Spoilers)
The following two elements are not important to understanding the worldbuilding of this story. They instead come out of the woodwork to massively influence the plot, and one of them seems like it’s going to be the driving force behind the narrative going forward. That’s not to say that Islington doesn’t establish or justify them. One of them is just a bit odd, while the other is presented as a payoff to a mystery (a payoff that will be spoiled if you read the premise of The Strength of the Few, so consider yourself warmed).
Alupi
The island where the magic school is set had a population of enormous wolves, known as alupi. They are established as a danger via a passing reference early in Act One.
We don’t get a lot about alupi beyond that, but they are clearly very intelligent and very loyal. Midway through the book, Vis saves an alupi pup from drowning in a stream. Near the climax, he encounters the same alupi, now large enough to he dangerous to a human being. The alupi tries to keep him from entering some ruins and later defends him throughout the climax.
While I can't say that the inclusion of this particularly alupi was necessarily a problem for this story, it was a strange inclusion. I hope the alupi get more exploration and explanation as the series continues, if for no other reason to explain what exactly was going on with this plot thread.
Obiteum, Luceum, Res
As part of Vis’s mission at the Magic School, he is given two mysterious words to investigate: “Obiteum” and “Luceum”. Halfway through the book, Vis hears this cryptic message from what I can only describe as a massive crypt filled with zombies, inside one of the ruins:
“Obiteum is lost. Do not open the gate. Synchronous is death.”
Later, in another ruin, he reads this message over a door.
LUCEUM. OBITEUM. RES. REMEMBER, BUT DO NOT MOURN.
And that’s all we’re given to go on … until we get to a strange sort of epilogue to the book, titled “Synchronism”.
This epilogue represents two alternative versions of a scene from the climax. In the original version of the story, Vis delves into the deepest part of the ruins, sees some terrifying things he couldn’t explain, and escapes … with guidance from a message that mysteriously carves itself into his arm. For the remainder of the climax, he finds he’s developed some strange extrasensory abilities.
In the first of the two alternative takes, Vis ignores the feedback from the cuts on his arm and tries to escape the ruin on his own. This story ends with the implied loss of his arm (he blacks out, so it’s not clear exactly what happens).
In the second of the alternative takes, Vis encounters a man in the ruins, who proceeds to explain that he has been copied onto Obiteum, which is implied to be an alternative reality. The original world that the bulk of Many is set on is Res. There’s also a third world, Luceum, which is implied to be the reality from the first alternative take. The man who greets Vis then sends instructions to his other selves by carving words into his arm, citing that there is at least a temporary connection between his three selves. (This is also why I assume he lost his arm in the first alternative take. The climax of the book see’s Vis’s arm develop an inexplicably intense case of gangrene, forcing the arm to be amputated. This bit with the instructions in the arm implies that the loss of an arm in the one reality killed the arm in the others.)
This is a wild swerve for the story to take. It’s not entirely unprecedented. It wraps up certain mysteries set up earlier in the story, and Vis did have visions of some strange otherworld during the incident with the man with godlike power. I assume (both from what’s on the page and what’s in the premise of The Strength of the Few) that this will define the series going forward, particularly since some mysterious force known as the Concurrence was identified as a Big Bad antagonist in the Synchronism chapter.
THEMES
Extremism vs. Complicity
The Anguis are an embodiment of the idea that the ends justify the means. This isn’t presented as moustache-twirling villainy, though. Instead, it’s a challenge to Vis and his belief that wanton violence isn’t the answer to opposing the Hierarchy.
This really comes into focus late in Act One, when the leader of the Anguis give the following speech prior to a terror attack. (I have removed all the non-dialogue portions for the sake of brevity.)
My name is Arturus Melion Leos. I am the leader of the group you know as the Anguis, who fight for a better world than the one you have created. And let there be no mistake: it is you - all of you - who are responsible for creating it. Not those in power. Not the ones who wield what you give them, because you give it to them. You let them stand on your shoulders, all for the dream of one day being able to stand atop others’. Even when you know, deep down, that it is an illusion. As unattainable for most of you as it is selfish.
A pyramid’s strength is in its foundation, not its peak. So I have come here today to judge. I have come to bring a reckoning for your decisions. You weakness. Your blindness and cowardice and complicity.
Another statement made by this character is that, “Silence is a statement,” which he says to Vis in a bid to urge Vis to aid the Anguis in their cause. Vis vehemently disagrees with this position, calling upon principles that were ingrained into him by his father … but he doesn’t claim to have a better answer, outside of holding onto principles.
Room for Debate
Something I’m going to get into next week while reviewing Chapters 45 through 47 of Onyx Storm is the issue of bulldozing through opposing arguments without justifying that action. We’re given a case where appealing to inviolable principles could have justified the position the author takes … only for no such principles to be invoked. We’re presented with a strong case for the opposition and are told that the opposition doesn’t matter, with it all being framed as a rational position despite the lack of anything to actually counter the opposition.
Here, Vis’s position is clearly one of idealism. He is acknowledging the opposition as correct but draws a line as to what he’s willing to do. We also know, from his characterization, that he doesn’t think defeating the Hierarchy is possible and only cares about survival at this point. His refusal to resort to extremes could be dismissed as selfishness - and this gets called out within the narrative.
I grit my teeth. “Come on, Estevan. We’re on the same side. We’re not monsters.”
Estevan tilts his head up and to the side, enough so that I can see his face. His eyes are red. Tears leak from them. “We are what they make us, Diago.”
“We don’t have to be.”
He laughs, a hollow sound against the ethereal moans of terror still echoing to us over the water. “That’s the power of the Hierarchy—we do, because there is no standing apart. You fight the tyranny of the many, or you are one of them.” He hangs his head again. Tired. “Silence is a statement, Diago. Inaction picks a side. And when those lead to personal benefit, they are complicity.”
It’s a strangely melancholic statement, delivered without malice. I still feel its accusation.
Many takes the position that the ends don’t justify the means and that certain principles need to be upheld at all costs, yet at the same time, it acknowledges the flaw in that position. As a result, this doesn’t feel like preaching to the audience. It’s a thematic journey for Vis. Room is being left for him to either earn the wisdom to propose a solution or else to change his perspective.
A World for a Theme
What I particularly appreciate about this theme is that the worldbuilding is built to accommodate it. Because of the mechanics of the magic system, the Anguis aren’t wrong about everyone being complicit. The power that the Hierarchy uses to oppress people is freely given to them by those same people. At the same time, Vis is actively trying to avoid being complicit in this system, even though it would make his survival easier. A personal motivation that he has while climbing the ladder within the Academy is that, if he is the top of his class, he can get assigned to the embassy in Jatiere, where the embassy staff are forbidden from using Will. This meshing of the magic system with this theme makes both feel richer. The thematic conflict is baked into the structure of the world. One can’t oppose the Hierarchy without engaging with this question.
Obsession
The inciting incident of the book is Vis being recruited by a character named Ulciscor to infiltrate the Academy on Ulciscor’s behalf. While Ulciscor does have political reasons for this, what’s far more important to him is his personal motivation: he suspects that the headmaster of the Academy is responsible for his brother’s death and wants Vis to uncover proof.
Where the obsession comes in his how far he’s willing to push Vis to achieve this goal. From the beginning, he makes it clear that he’ll condemn Vis to a Sapper if Vis fails to deliver. This works as an opening threat. However, as the story progresses, we learn that Ulciscor is so obsessed with this goal that he’s prepared to dispose of Vis for not climbing the ranks of the Academy fast enough (since being higher in rank will aid in the investigation) and effectively orders Vis to walk into an apparently suicidal situation to get that proof he’s certain is there.
On the opposite side of things, we have Vis, who has also lost family members (in his case, to the Hierarchy). However, he’s not willing to sacrifice others to feed the grudge. There’s a scene late in the book where he’s offered a chance for someone else to kill the Hierarchy official directly responsible for his family’s death, and he turns down the offer, reasoning that suffering to innocent bystanders that would result isn’t worth satisfying his own anger.
This thematic contrast is far simpler than the discussion of extremism versus complicity, yet this is also a much simpler topic. This isn’t a complex topic where counterpoints need to be acknowledged, explored, and addressed. It’s a straightforward and widely applicable moral choice about minimizing harm.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON THEME AND WORLDBUILDING
Islington’s care for his setting and his attention to the details makes a huge difference for the reading experience. At least as far as the story being told is concerned, all of the pieces fit together. You can immerse yourself within this world and engage with its themes without needing to switch your brain off. I wish that this was the minimum standard for Fantasy writing. The genre would be so much better for it.
HIGH BARS, LOW BAR
On October 31st, we will discuss the rich character work of The Will of the Many. Islington has created a cast of complex individuals with clashing perspectives, creating many rich opportunities for drama. What I find particularly interesting, is how he managed to handle both romance and a large cast of tertiary characters. Elements that I have complained about elsewhere are executed far better than I would have thought possible. I hope you’ll join me as we dive into it.
Before then, on October 24th, we will explore Chapters 45 through 47 of Onyx Storm. At this point in the story, Yarros is just killing time as she waits until she has enough pages for the climax. What really stands out about this chapter, though, is her mishandling of theme. Yarros takes the immigration / refugee dilemma that functioned so effectively as a means to make sense of an existential threat and mangles it by trying and failing to deliver serious commentary. It is incredibly cringeworthy, and it really didn’t need to be.
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