The Strength of the Few

The second novel in James Islington's Hierarchy series continues the story begun in The Will of the Many. New readers should start with book one — the premise here builds directly on its revelations.

Having survived the deadly games of the Catenan Academy, Vis Telimus finds the ground beneath him far stranger and more dangerous than the Republic's ordinary intrigues. The forces he glimpsed at the close of his first ordeal now draw him into a struggle that reaches beyond a single world, where rival powers, buried histories, and a looming Cataclysm press in at once — and where every faction he meets justifies terrible things in the name of order.

Stretched across competing loyalties and identities, Vis must work out who he truly is and what he is willing to sacrifice before catastrophe arrives. Sprawling, intricate, and darker than its predecessor, The Strength of the Few deepens the series' interrogation of power and the human cost of the few ruling the many.