My 24th read of the year was The Will of the Many, the first book in the Heirarchy series by James Islington. This was another recommendation by booktuber Lexi AKA Newlynova and she almost never leads me wrong.
Plot summary attempt
In this world, a roman-esq style government called the Hierarchy rules. Power or Will is transferred upwards in the hierarchy, giving people at the top greater strength, agility, energy and the ability to imbue that Will into objects, or manipulate the world around them. Those at the bottom of the pyramid though, ceed half their will upwards, and so spend their lives listless and dull-witted. Hundreds of years before the events of this book was the Cataclysm, an event that nearly ended the world, where much of the knowledge was lost, including a lot of the deeper secrets about WIll use.
The main character, Vis, is actually the son of the King in the last kingdom to fall to the Hierarchy. He escaped but his entire family is dead and his kingdom absorbed by the Hierarchy. Vis has scraped by, hiding and refusing to ceed Will or draw it himself, without getting that fact noticed by the authorities. The book begins with him living in an orphanage under a fake name, working in one of the prisons and losing all his earning to the matron of his orphanage, leaving him to fight in the pits for extra money. It’s the longest he’s lived in one place since the sacking of his kingdom.
When a chance encounter with a Quintus (a very powerful man in the senate, who has a lot of Will ceded to him), leads to Vis being adopted – he’s left with no choice but to accept what is happening. Ulciscor has an ulterior motive in adopting Vis, he needs someone smart enough and physically gifted enough to infiltrate the academy for him. The government is divided into pillars, and Military and Religion are currently on the brink of civil war. Religion control the academy, where Ulciscor’s brother died six years ago, and he’s determined to uncover whether Religion and the academy’s headmaster had something to do with it. he threatens Vis with imprisonment if he doesn’t succeed, but also promises him an illustrious career if he does – one where Vis might never have Ceed or draw will. It’s the first real chance at a future Vis has had, so, despite all the risks, he agrees.
The academy is intense, and Vis finds himself constantly straining against the Hierarchy’s culture, even though he does his best to fit in. Plus, there’s another complication, a rebel faction knows his real identity and they are also using it to blackmail him into furthering their own interests at the academy and against the powerful people in the Hierarchy that Vis now has access too.
Vis slowly discovers the secrets Religion is hiding, but he also discovers devastating ones Military is holding too, and all of this is tangled up with the rebel faction. All Vis wants to do is survive, and survive with as much of his soul in-tact as possible but as he finds out how deep these secrets run, and how it’s all related to the cataclysm, his hopes of being free of the Hierarchy one day diminish.
My thoughts
This book was SO GOOD, Vis is a great reluctant hero – he doesn’t want to reclaim his kingdom, or get revenge, he just wants to survive. Unfortunately his training as a prince and the survival mode he’s been living in since then has honed him into the perfect weapon. I really enjoyed the friendships Vis makes and how he doesn’t have it easy, despite being very talented, Vis really does struggle to survive in the academy and perform all the tasks being put upon him by different people.
I thought it was really interesting way to learn about the Hierarchy’s society through Vis’s eyes as someone trying to survive and masquerade as one of them – it’s a massive society to understand and could have been really dully monologued as I’ve seen in some books.
And the ending!? I’m reading the next one ASAP let’s put it that way.
Antonia Bernardin 