Will of the Many
3.0 Stars
12-1-2023
The Roman Empire. Don't think it, Don't say it
A YAish fantasy adventure/magic school set in a vague approximation of the Roman-empire. The main conceit of the book is ceding, a process enabled by ancient artifacts which allows one person to cede a portion of their strength/will to another. It reifies political organization, and allows groups to form hierarchies of ceding where those at the top of the pyramid are drawing from thousands of others at the bottom. This makes the leaders much stronger/tougher, and also lets them utilize magical Vril powers using all the excess will they've gathered. These vril-based magics are used to power the Empire's infrastructure and its warfare, but it also means that the masses at the base of the pyramid are living maybe ~75% of a life as their excess energy/strength/attention/lifeforce is sapped from them to supply the system. The protagonist does not like this, and decides to make it everyone's problem.
On the plus side, the book moves fast, goes to unexpected places with its world building, and quickly proliferates an array of competing organizations and characters with secret loyalties. On the downside, it can be rather tropey, and while the writing and character building are fine they're never really brilliant. I've heard this book ranked up there with the universally beloved Name of the Wind as one of the best magic school books out there, but I don't think the comparison holds. The Name of the Wind works because while the protagonist is enormously gifted, these gifts are tragic gifts that are enough to allow the protagonist to step over the normal rules of his society, but never quite enough to let him avoid/prevent the fallout caused by his actions. By contrast, In the Will of the Many, the main character is just omni-competent, and if he's not the best at something he can usually get there with a few weeks practice and then everything works great. It's a much more common and much less interesting dynamic, i.e. just a plain old fantasy.