4.5 ⭐️ This review has spoilers for BOOK 1 of this series, The Will of the Many, but does NOT have spoilers for THIS book, The Strength of the Few. If you haven't read WOTM—naughty, naughty! Get out of this review section!!

"A society cannot make a man a monster, Diago. But it can give him the excuse to become one."

Hail, fellow Octavii!! Gah....what do I even say about this book? This was one of my most anticipated Fall 2025 reads (which, to be fair, isn't saying a whole lot since I only read WOTM two weeks ago; nevertheless, I was HYPED for this one to come out). I have heard it called "the best book two ever written" by multiple reviewers, so I understandably had very high expectations. It was an incredible book...but I fear it just did not quite live up to what I had hoped for after reading WOTM.

To recap where we left off at the end of WOTM, Vis has run the Labyrinth and traveled through the mysterious "Gate" at the ruins during the Iudicium. As a result, he is copied into two other realms in addition to the one where he already resides. SOTF follows these three iterations of Vis in the three different realms—Obiteum, Luceum, and Res—as he tries to come to terms with the seemingly impending Cataclysm and navigate the social and political landscapes he finds himself (himselves?) in.

(BTW, if you want a quick WOTM refresher, James Islington released a bonus chapter "Interlude" that basically recaps everything from the first book. It's free to read online HERE and only took me about 20 minutes to get through.)

Firstly, it felt like this book was ten billion pages. It simultaneously felt overly long yet also not long enough. And like book 1, this bitch is DENSE. It is ten billion pages of needing to be LOCKED TF IN, so get ready to invest some serious time and brain power into reading this. This was the book version of Olive Garden never-ending fettuccini alfredo where every time I thought surely—SURELY—I must be getting close to the bottom of the bowl (book), BAM here's 250 more pages. At times that felt utterly exhausting. Never-ending fettuccini alfredo is delicious, but there comes a time when dinner just needs to be freaking over. While WOTM was also long, it had this very compelling mystery at the center of the story that kept the plot moving and had me eager to keep reading. This one lacked a bit of that forward momentum for me. It felt like it got too bogged down in the minutiae of what was happening in each universe when what I really wanted was big-picture answers and to see the overarching plot move.

When the plot was moving forward, it did so with utterly wack pacing. There were times side characters were barely introduced and then suddenly they were extremely important to Vis and we were supposed to care deeply about them. And on the other end of the spectrum, important characters from WOTM were pushed to the side and left behind while barely receiving any on-page time rather than getting the deeper character development they were set up for after WOTM. Very important events (particularly in Part III) happened off-page and were never really explained. They were just swallowed in these short time jumps that ate up what should've been epic scenes, and that was kind of disappointing and confusing at times. In the immortal words of Sevro from Red Rising: "shit escalates." I just wish shit had escalated a bit more and a bit quicker at times.

I will not be commenting on Chapter 71 except to say James Islington you better count your days because I am in your walls and I will not let you get away with this.

If I was feeling more inclined towards a bit of late-night literary analysis, I could write more here about the symbolism of death as a plot device in the book and the various archetypes we see Vis embody in each of the realms. But the truth is, this is one of those books you just have to read for yourself. Despite the ways it fell flat for me, I do really recommend it. It's very different than book 1, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It had some good twists and turns and a few moments that made me audibly yelp in surprise. You can tell James Islington plots out his books with red string on a cork board, and I say that in a complimentary way. It's what made this book 4.5 stars for me. I liked WOTM better, but I know some people will like this one more.

Finally, dear reader, I will leave you with the words from the Part II heading: Ante Omnia Armari—"before all else, be armed." Be armed with the Will of at least a Quintus going into this book if you want to have any hope of making it through. It's still worth it in the end.

“The Hierarchy is a monster that has to feed to survive. And inevitably, once it has eaten everything else, all that is left to consume is itself.”

P.S. Can someone PLEASE get me a goddamn map of Obiteum??