Review: The Will of the Many

After my fiancée read The Will of the Many and proclaimed that it was perhaps the best book she's ever read, the physical copy was prompty bought and placed on my bedside table expectantly, so I gave it a read.

I absolutely loved it. Similarly to my other book reviews, this will contain spoilers, so stop reading if you're planning on reading the book. Also similarly to my other reviews, it's not really... well... a review, and more of a stream of questions or thoughts I had about the book, and things I'm not sure made sense.

"The Will of the Many" is the first book of a planned trilogy by Australian author James Islington. I don't really know how to categorise it. It feels like sci-fi, but sci-fi usually conjures thoughts of spaceships and polished stainless tubing, and this story is set in the cities, countryside, and islands of a fictional post-apocalyptic ancient Rome. Consequently, it doesn't feel like classic sci-fi, and describing it as sci-fi also feels like a disservice, because the main storyline is more of a politically motivated murder mystery, which probably appeals to a slightly different audience than simply "sci-fi enjoyers".

Why I Like the Book

Dense Plot

The many plotlines of the story are woven together very well, each eliciting enough curiousity to keep me hooked. The main questions that held my interest were:

• What is the mystery of Vis's past? (More of an early question)
• Who killed Caeror and why?
• What will come of the political instability and infighting between governance, religion, and military?
• What are the Anguis planning next, and will they successfully spur on revolution?
• Where is all the unaccounted will going?
• Who is at the top of the heirarchy?

Other Tropes I Enjoy

Superhero Main Character - I'm a giant sucker for a story where the main character is incredibly strong and beats people at physical and mental games a lot. This is that type of book.

Climbing Rigidly Defined Heirarchy - Another trope I personally love is when either society or some micro-cosm of it has a rigidly defined heirarchy. Examples include:

• The ranking of tiered cities of Panem from the Hunger Games, and subsequent ranking of their entrants.
• The ranked train cars of Snowpiercer.

Or perhaps getting even more similar to "The Will of the Many":

• The elite culinary school of Food Wars! where the prestigous "Elite 10" rule and lead the school. The often come from high ranking culinary families, and they must be sequentially defeated in food based battles to become to best student.
• The military ranking system in Enders Game, as students fit into the Launchie → Soldier → Toon Leader → Commander heirarchy as they play "Battle Room", a game which fuses physicality and mental fortitude under pressure. Sounds familiar, right?

I enjoy the "continuous improvement" feeling as the protagonist undergoes intense training to climb the heirarchy, so I thoroughy enjoyed this book, given that not only is society broken into obvious strata, but also the exclusive school they attend.

Quantity

Some foods are amazing, but you eat them in small quantities like macarons.

Some foods are rather mediocre, and are served in large quantities like a boring stir-fry.

This book is like a giant serving of nachos. Delicious and plentiful.

What I'm trying to say is that this book was damn long, and it was good the whole way though. I enjoyed the 20th bite as much as I enjoyed the 1st, and it finished right when I got full.

Some other thoughts

I love this book. Here are some other random observations I made while reading:

Similarities to Harry Potter

At the beginning of this book, my brain kept noticing similarities to Harry Potter. Maybe it's because I re-read a few Harry Potter's recently, but also come on:

• Protagonist is orphan with parents killed by villain.

• Elevated above regular society by some encounter.

• Sent off to prestigious previously-unknown magic school.

• Break school rules to sneak around the ancient ruins (cough restricted section cough) and investigate deeper conspiracy.

• Incredibly skilled at vaguely described fantastical sports with rules that don't really make much sense when you think about them.

• Book almost ends with a recovery scene in a hospital wing.

Why in the measurement system imperial?

All throughout the book, measurements are given in pounds and feet. This grinds my gears because now I need to do mental calculations to figure out roughly how large things are, and the author is a god damn Australian, and we use the metric system.

I can think of two arguments for why this was done.

It's authentic. Ancient Rome used feet - Yeah they also spoke Latin, but the book is written in English so we can read it, so the units should be sensible too, no?

It's to appeal to an American reader - Using an inferior unit for money feels like selling out. It feels like Vis accepting will. I don't like it.

How did the Anguis catch Vis at the Festival?

At the Festival of Pletuna, Aequa hires some goons to try to prove that Vis is using Will. Somehow the goons catch Vis near instantly, even though he spots them and has a 15.24 meter (50 ft) headstart. I don't think the goons should have been able to catch him, since Vis is in extrordinary athletic shape. The goons don't even have any special powers! Sure they have Will, but as it's been explained, Will doesn't make you run faster.

Surprise when Relucia doesn't want to kill him

Somehow at the Festival of the Ancestors, Vis is surprised that Relucia doesn't want to kill him for killing Estevan/Melior. I feel like this was obvious? Vis didn't kill him, he killed himself. Obviously it was part of a grand plan.

Foundation

The game of Foundation feels like a mix of Go and the fictional game of Cones of Dunshire from Parks and Recreation.

Convenient Alupi

When Vis fed the stray dog he found, I thought: "Ok obviously this is going to come back to help him", and so surprise surprise when he almost gets killed by a giant wolf, and then it miraculously turned out to be Diego and saves Vis's live, I rolled my eyes and said "of course". Diego then leaves.

Later, despite not really acknowledging Vis after the initial encounter, Diego miraculously comes back and attacks the zombie husk people, saving Vis's life once again! Crazy!

And then later after being thrown into a river unconcious, Vis wake to be been saved and dragged to shore AGAIN by Diego who miraculously found him, and continues to not even really recognise him!

Come on, this is a massive overreliance on a random dog for plot advancement, don't you think? Just have Vis get bitten inside the dome and make it out trapping the people inside. Just let Vis miraculously float to the riverbank and not drown. Why does the dog even need to be in the story?

Other

Probably don't make this book into a movie.

I tend to look at the first Harry Potter as an example of an excellent movie adaption of a book. Every chapter in the book is a scene in the movie, and nothing much is left out.

The Will of the Many has similar feeling, and similar length chapters, and I'd love to see each individual chapter expressed as a scene in a movie, however:

when you compare the length of the two novels, there is an obvious problem.

I think the only way to you could make The Will of the Many into a movie, and do a good job of it, would be to commit to making 3-4 movies for the first book of three. On top of the large SFX budget required for will-powered devices, the labyrinth, transvects, etc. I think this story should remain a book unless it because such a best seller that it could command an insane budget.

Conclusion

I absolutely loved the book and will be snatching for a copy of the sequel the second it releases. I can't wait to read it, and if Diego the alupi features in it, my eyes will rolls so far back into my skull I'll see my own brain.