Katabasis (Standard Edition): A Novel
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:
The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.
That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….
Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.
With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.
But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.
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Community Reviews
Katabasis feels less like a novel and more like an academic name-dropping contest. The female lead is saddled with a “woe is me” attitude, convinced she’s the smartest person in any room, and resentful of anyone who dares to have had an easier time in life or academia. Instead of coming across as ambitious, she just feels one-dimensional, self-pitying, and exhausting. The male lead? About as compelling as lukewarm tea.
And then there’s the endless parade of writers, poets, philosophers, and literary theories about hell. But instead of enriching the story, it just feels like Kuang waving around her bibliography. Name-dropping ≠ narrative. All of this would be forgivable if there were a solid story at the heart of it, but what little plot exists feels like a side quest in service of the references.
When the writing is dry and the characters are dull, no amount of intellectual window-dressing can make it work. I tapped out early — life’s too short for a book that’s all gloss and no substance.
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