Collider senior editor David Caballero has named James Islington's "The Will of the Many" the greatest epic fantasy novel published in the past decade. The Australian author's book draws on the structure of the real-world Roman Republic to build a dystopian world, and the piece argues its combination of inventive worldbuilding, atmospheric prose and a layered protagonist places it among the finest genre novels of the 21st century.

The novel is set 300 years after a catastrophic event, in a world dominated by the Catenan Republic, which has conquered most of known civilisation using recovered ancient technology. Society is organised through "the Hierarchy", a system that redistributes people's physical and mental energy, or "Will", from the lowest class (the Octavi, who surrender half their Will for nothing in return) up to the elite Princepts, who benefit from roughly 400 people's Will while giving up none themselves. The story follows Vis, a 17-year-old runaway working in brutal prisons, who is recruited by a powerful senator, Magnus Quintus Ulciscor, into a dangerous conspiracy that offers him a possible escape from the Hierarchy.