I was hoping to love The Will of the Many, a very popular book about an orphaned prince named Vis, surviving in the Rome-inspired empire that destroyed his nation and family. When he is adopted/blackmailed by a prominent senator to act as his agent and spy within a highly reputable academy, Vis’s life not only becomes more challenging, but much more dangerous as well. The premise of the story had potential to be exciting, and the setting also allowed for the possibility of some good world-building. One fantastical aspect of the Catenan society is that it’s structured around the idea of “will” (a magical energy) that can not only be imbued into objects to allow them to do all kinds of things; but will is also ceded from one person to another in a hierarchy, so that the lower ranking individuals collectively provide power to the higher ranked. This ceding of will not only gives the recipients greater physical attributes, it is used as the basis of the class structure in their society as well. Unfortunately, I don’t think either the world-building or the story lived up to the potential of its setup.

The way that will is explained to work doesn’t seem thought out enough to support the world-building. It’s a very simple concept, but considering the whole society is built around the ceding of will and the use of will, its simplicity actually makes it inadequate. An example is how Catenans use flying vehicles called transvects, which are powered by imbued will. This vehicle is like something out of science fiction, where normally some kind of electromagnetic energy is used to power it. If in Caten it’s powered by humans ceding their will, how many people are being used to power a single vehicle? Are there de facto factories where people are sitting around fueling an energy grid for these vehicles? Nothing like that is mentioned. Similarly, the imbuing of will magic into objects is very poorly explained. It seems that anyone at a certain level can imbue an object and make it do whatever they want. It feels more like a narrative excuse to add some futuristic sci-fi technology into an Ancient Rome based society. For example, there are some stones that can be used, if swallowed, as trackers. Someone with another specially-imbued tablet would then be able to visualize the position of the trackers on the tablet. There’s no explanation of what kind of signal is being transmitted by the trackers, or how the tablet receives, translates the signal, and manifests the relative location of the trackers on the tablet. It feels like something out of Mission Impossible, but it all works thanks to the power of will.

The events of the story follow a fairly typical trajectory. Once Vis starts to attend the academy, we encounter a lot of the classic school tropes and plot points that we come to expect. He makes friends by defending another student from a bully on the first day. There are elitist students who look down on Vis for his supposedly lowly background. There is a teacher who is determined to mistreat Vis and keep him from succeeding. I quickly started to draw parallels to Harry Potter, and other similar stories. Who’s the Ron? Who’s the Draco? Who’s the Snape? Nevertheless, I guess it’s still enjoyable to follow a supposed underdog as he overcomes his challenges to succeed and climb the ranks. It’s fun to watch him outsmart those who are prejudiced against him and foil their schemes. This story became a bit more “young adult” in tone and sophistication, revolving around these young characters, who have the fate of the whole society in their hands (No one knows what the adults/leaders are busy doing?!) and that was OK, as long as you weren’t expecting more.

James Islington’s prose was adequate, but he fell into the trap of hyping rather than describing things. Descriptions were full of sensational words as a way to heighten the emotional impact in an obvious way. And feelings were often directly named rather than described. Sometimes a word would be used because it feels extreme, rather than for its actual meaning. For example, when Vis is caught by a giant claw contraption, its effect is described this way: “The pressure on my body increases, becomes unbearable, a relentless crushing compression, but then it abruptly releases.” How can it be relentless if it immediately releases? “Relentless” means “incessant” and “oppressively constant” and this was not. The nature of the language might be attributed to the first-person narrative since everything we read is coming from Vis’s account of events and of his perception of them. Maybe it’s all meant to reflect a teenager’s heightened emotions. Hype is exciting and thrilling, but it doesn’t paint a very full or textured picture of events or characters.

I’m not going to keep bashing on a novel that is loved by so many, and is moderately enjoyable. There’s obviously something here for many to love. However, it has the seeds of a much better story, and I wish that it could have been written a bit better. Since The Will of the Many has now been picked up for potential movie adaptation, this story might be shared with an even larger audience. I think the producers of this movie have some work to do to flesh out this world and make the characters more interesting and unique. But who knows? This story could make a really fun blockbuster in a few summers.

3 stars