This is a tough sequel to review without any spoilers for The Will of the Many, so I’m not going to attempt it. Spoiler warning for Book I below!

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The Strength of the Few picks up right where The Will of the Many left off: Vis, the protagonist, has been simultaneously copied into two other worlds called Luceum and Obiteum while his story also continues back in the world of Book I, called Res. Somewhat necessarily, each storyline is not as deep as the story in the first book.

The politics and motivations that made me excited about The Will of the Many fade into the background of this installment. The Catenan Senate in Res is relegated to a third of the chapters, and Vis’s unfamiliarity with the other two worlds make him much less of an astute observer of the political machinations around him there.

I mentioned in my last review that the world of Res felt shallow for how physically large it was. I can better forgive some of that that shallowness here considering how different Obiteum and Luceum feel. The Strength of the Few shows that Islington can build deep history and culture into his worlds when he wants to, but he sometimes thinks its better to keep readers at an information disadvantage for the sake of the plot.

Luceum

I absolutely loved the Luceum storyline. Readers are introduced to an entirely new world with just enough detail to keep us engaged and excited to learn more without overwhelming us with exposition. The way Islington uses Gaelic to represent Luceum’s primary language is great. From most readers’ perspective it’s the same as if he’s made up his own language without needing to be a philologist on top of being a fantasy author.

The worldbuilding in Luceum felt much more like what Ursula K. Le Guin utilizes in her Earthsea books rather than the exposition-heavy information dumps that Islington uses elsewhere that reminds me more of The Broken Earth Trilogy’s latter entries.

This version of Vis also has some real character growth here in a way that was completely missing in Obiteum and unsatisfying in Res.

Obiteum

Obiteum reminded me of Cittagazze from The Subtle Knife: the world is clearly broken, and something related to the existence of multiple worlds was what broke it. In general I saw more influences from His Dark Materials than Red Rising throughout The Strength of the Few. The initial imagery of Gleaners parallel Spectres in a very fun way.

Once we move from the rebel hideout of Qabr into the city of Duat, though, things start to fall through the cracks. My book club all agreed that we needed a map of Duat to go along with Vis’s descriptions of how he is moving through the city. I would love to have learned more about the society in Duat, its religion, and the totality of how Will works in Obiteum. So much time is spent on the undead Iunctii, but Vis’s entrance to Obiteum introduces us to a variety of Will-based devices that aren’t mentioned at all in parts II and III.

Res

I enjoyed learning more about the mechanics of Will and how Catenan society operates outside the confines of the Academy. Vis is fully on the inside of “the system” now, and seeing how Will affects everything from politics to athletics to combat was great.

The Catenan civil war completely changes the setting and unfortunately as much as we spent learning about Catenan politics in Book I and the first half of Book II, there’s so many more forgettable Catenan senators introduced whose motivations are explained mostly through exposition dumps.

All in, Part III’s Res storyline felt very rushed. Vis makes some consequential decisions which feel like they come out of nowhere. A new plan from Vis and Eidhin in the final 100 pages which I assumed would form the Res plotline in Book III is somehow wrapped up in less than a chapter. While there are strong emotional points, I ultimately don’t truly understand why Vis makes the decisions and alliances he does.

Splitting the Book

There were two very disorienting time jumps in the book: 6 weeks in Obiteum between parts I and II, and a month in Res between parts II and III. The narration refers to events and people that happened in the meantime without any indication of missing chapters in between — both times I had to double-check that my Kindle didn’t glitch out and miss a few dozen pages. Ultimately I think the location of these time jumps mark out a good place where the book itself could have been split in two:

Book II would follow the entire Luceum storyline, Vis’s time in Qabr in Obiteum, and the Res storyline up until Excesius is killed. This can dive more deeply into how exactly Will is used in Caten and flesh out the politics of the Senate even more.

Book III would cover the Catenan civil war and Vis’s infiltration of the city of Duat in Obiteum.

The downside of this approach would be that the three storylines would not proceed in lockstep in time. Maybe Islington is planning some bigger payoff in the next book, but there was one moment of “synchronism” that did not feel narratively or emotionally powerful, so I don’t think the parallel narrative gimmick is particularly worth it.

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed learning more about the world(s) that Islington is building. My excitement about Luceum mostly counterbalances my confusion in Obiteum and my frustration with how Res feels even smaller and more condensed than in the first book.

Backstory isn’t bad in and of itself, but learning more history shouldn’t be the reason we keep reading. I don’t like when characters (and readers) learning new information becomes the main plot tension in a story. When revealed, the “right” answers are often not as satisfying as the possibilities and theories that readers come up with along the way. Right now I don’t know what’s a plot hole and what’s a conscious omission that will be filled in later to support a twist or some other dramatic effect. The only way to find out is to wait for the rest of the series to be published.

The Expanse balanced this well: its final installment gave some satisfying answers about the Protomolecule while leaving enough to interpretation and keeping the conclusion of the book mostly about the characters we’d gotten to know.

Considering how the focus of The Strength of the Few shifted from the motivations of individual people and groups in Res to the cosmic forces connecting and separating the three worlds we’re now following, I’m not as optimistic that Islington will stick the landing.