Synopsis:
This highly anticipated follow-up to The Will of the Many—one of 2023’s most lauded and bestselling fantasy novels—follows Vis as he grapples with a dangerous secret that could change the course of history across alternate dimensions.
OMNE TRIUM PERFECTUM.
The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am.
But with all that has happened—with what I fear is coming—I am not sure it matters anymore.
I am no longer one. I won the Iudicium, and lost everything—and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives. I have to hide; fight; play politics. I have to train; trust; lie. I have to kill; heal; prove myself again, and again, and again.
I am loved, and hated, and entirely alone.
Above all, though, I need to find answers before it’s too late. To understand the nature of what has happened to me, and why.
I need to find a way to stop the coming Cataclysm, because if all I have learned is true, I may be the only one who can.
Review:
So… I like to watch cooking competitions. Master Chef…Top Chef…Iron Chef…if there are multiple chefs in the kitchen whipping up an entree to be judged, I’ll watch it. Many times as the show progresses, one chef decides they need to be bold and take some chances — instead of just cooking shrimp one way for their one entree…they’re like “I’m going to cook shrimp three ways,” giving the judges a grilled shrimp, a shrimp ceviche, and a pickled shrimp (I don’t know, I’m not a chef). All of a sudden, the difficulty of their dish just went up a few notches. Perfecting one dish is hard enough, but perfecting three dishes?? The win is practically in the bag if they nail all three preparations of the same entree. BUT…even if the grilled shrimp would make angels weep — an undercooked shrimp on the other side of the plate dooms the whole dish.
So, after a few chapters into The Strength of the Few, I realized James Islington is flat-out cooking here, because this novel is essentially three books in one. With three copies of Vis navigating the politics, cultures, and violence of three different worlds, the recipe for disaster is always within reach, but Islington avoids the pitfalls of the second novel in a series.
I found The Strength of the Few to be a captivating first-person fantasy with interweaving storylines that kept me reading far past my bedtime. It is a fantastic read and I already can’t wait for more in Islington’s Hierarchy series.
I read The Will of the Many in May of this year and I was utterly enthralled by Vis and his journey in the first book of Islington’s Hierarchy series. I’m glad I read the two books close together, but unlike some books where I really struggle to remember characters and plots from previous books, I don’t think I would have had as many issues here. Islington does a good job recapping the important parts from the previous book — three separate times in some cases since we’re following three separate versions of Vis around three separate worlds.
It’s a bold swing. And it’s a swing that I am grateful for. Islington could have put out a really good book that simply rehashed many of the plot points from the first book. This book would have received some really good reviews for simply staying on one world and the familiarity that Islington spent so long building up in the first book. But Islington didn’t do that. In taking this series in sometimes strange and unexpected directions, James Islington is setting up the Hierarchy series to potentially be an all-timer by the time he’s all done with it.
(Brief side note — I keep saying series instead of trilogy because Islington himself hasn’t confirmed the length. It may be a trilogy, but he’s mentioned in his own blog posts that it might exceed three books.)
Speaking of three books, I mentioned earlier that The Strength of the Few is essentially three in one. Clocking in around a quarter-million words or so, that gives each storyline a healthy 80-100k words each. There is some worldbuilding that needs to be done for Obiteum and Luceum, but since we are so familiar with Vis as our first-person POV from the first book, it makes the transition to each of those worlds fairly seamless. And each version of Vis has his own unique storyline and arc along the way.
The storylines each intertwine and are important to one another, but Vis has no way to contact his other selves, so he kinda has to just assume that each version of himself is doing the right thing. While I don’t really know if it’s going to be a trilogy, there were a lot of aspects to The Strength of the Few that felt like the middle part of a three-part series — and I mean that in the best way possible. On each world, Vis gets settled in and everything seems to be going well…not perfect, but well. Then…progressively on each world things just go wrong. There are some truly heartwarming aspects and some absolutely gut punches as the stories reach their climax.
There is so much I can say, but there is so much happening and so many things I don’t wish to spoil for readers of James Islington. But, if you read The Will of the Many, I can’t recommend Islington’s follow-up enough. The Strength of the Few is an epic multi-headed beast of a book that I literally couldn’t put down. This was a book prepared three ways and all three ways are exceptional.
The Strength of the Few by James Islington releases on November 11.
Thank you to Saga Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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