Book Review: There Will Be Thousands by Alexander Rob
In recent years there has been a glut of movies where the villain takes centre stage and the tale is retold from their perspective. I’m thinking of Cruella, Maleficent, and Wicked. What these all had in common, though, was that they made you like the antagonist. They made you feel sorry for them and relate to the choices they made that shaped the hero’s journey in the original version. Several books have done the same — Circe by Madeline Miller or Heartless by Marissa Meyer, for example. Instead of presenting the antagonist as flatly evil, these stories dive into their psychology, background, or social circumstances, making them sympathetic or at least understandable.
So, when I picked up There Will Be Thousands by Alexander Rob and read the blurb, I expected a tale in a similar vein. Sitter was a bandit and a slaver, and the choices he made were cruel and callous. When he himself is captured and enslaved, he is forced to face the reality of what his victims endured. It sounded as though the novel would be a dark twist on the same formula — a story designed to make me pity someone I would otherwise despise.
I started the book hesitantly. Firstly, I’ve never been much of a fan of first-person narratives, and secondly, I assumed I was about to be manipulated into excusing the inexcusable. What I found instead was a thoroughly engaging and unexpectedly gripping read. From the opening, you are thrown into the action as Sitter murders the men of a family and enslaves the women. It’s shocking and brutal, yet it pulls you in. Here is a character you detest — his actions are repulsive — yet there is a subtle hint that not all is as it seems.
As the book progresses, Alexander Rob masterfully reveals fragments of Sitter’s story. What are his motivations? Where did he come from? Where is his path leading? Every decision Sitter makes forces you to recoil at the harshness, yet through his eyes you begin to understand the logic behind them. Unlike the stories I mentioned earlier, There Will Be Thousands does not sugar-coat its protagonist’s crimes. The book never asks you to forgive Sitter — and it is only at the very end that you finally understand what drove him into a life of murder and enslavement. The effect is far more unsettling than the glossy “villain origin” tales we’ve become used to, because the moral greyness is never softened for comfort.
The reading experience is immersive and surprisingly addictive. The pacing is tight — every chapter seems to end with a revelation or decision that makes you want to continue — and the grim atmosphere lingers even when you put the book down. Rob’s prose is clean, vivid, and never overwrought; he gives you enough detail to paint the picture without drowning the reader in description. In There Will Be Thousands, Alexander Rob has crafted a dark, powerful, and original story. His prose is fluid and immersive, the world he builds vast yet tantalisingly glimpsed in fragments, leaving the reader eager for more. This is no children’s tale — it is grim, unflinching, and utterly compelling. Rob Alexander is a writer to watch; if his future work is as bold and uncompromising as this, readers are in for a treat.
