I was nervous reading this as I love babel and Kuangs other work and I wanted it to live up to the hype. I did overall enjoy this book but I did find I was lost a bit and confused. I adored the beginning and couldn’t stop and was enjoying the main characters travels through hell. I thought the plot was a great idea but I did get lost and confused a bit by the theories and ideas. The ending grabbed me back and I did overall eat this book up. There is also a cat so even better. The main characters were good and I enjoyed their adventures but I just couldn’t imagine some of it (that’s on me). Overall a good book and would recommend if you love Kuangs previous work. She has a great mind and I love her writing.

4 stars.

Boy oh boy. Disclaimer: this review is coming from someone who is a slave of the academia: with two bachelor's degrees and 1 1/2 postgrad as my credentials, to say that this book gave me ptsd and reminded me that I do not, in fact, need another diploma is quite the understatement.

Let's get one thing off my chest: these people, especially Alice (controversial opinion?) are annoying, need to touch (and maybe smoke) some grass and be reminded that "kim, there's people that are dying" (your professor not included in this balloon) very much like half of the people I met in postgrad. Alice Law, whose superpower is turning every inconvenience into a crisis (LADY FOR THE LOVE OF THE LORD PLEASE CALM DOWN), teams up with Peter Murdoch, whose philosophy minor finally matters in hell ('coz let's be real, when will that ever apply in real life?). Both are gloriously insufferable: you’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll feel validated. So when I say this opened up trauma I didn't even know I have, I mean it. It was a hard read and purposefully so. The number of times I rolled my eyes gave me a migraine but let's get one thing straight: I love the pretentiousness of academia, and I gladly signed up for it didn't I.

Now on to the plot: It has all the suspense and revelations one expects from a journey to and through hell, but RF Kuang’s true trick is balancing funny absurdism with the kind of existential philosophy that convinces you that you’re so smart bestie just for reading this book and even so cooler that you get the references! (Did I watch YouTube videos of Dante's Inferno summaries so I'll get the inside jokes? Yes, yes I did. I ain't got no time to read it ok) There are ontological jokes, underworld puns, and the subtle suggestion that academia was always this close to damnation anyway. Truth be told, Katabasis is less "save our professor's soul 'coz he's oh so great and better than this" and more "hold my lembas bread while I outwit my academic rival (whom I may or may not be pining for???), dodge bone monsters, and debate who tabled that motion in committee first."

Pun intended, it was HELL of a ride. I only docked a star because true to dark academia fashion, everything happened and yet also nothing happened? *insert cardi b here asking what was the reason*

“You have a fetish for validation”

I absolutely did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did! Alice is such a multifaceted character; she’s complex, she’s difficult to understand, but also a mirror image of myself. She made me incredibly frustrated but filled me with such emotion. I am not familiar with R.F. Kuang’s writing, but if this is a glimpse into her work, I am so surprised! And will be diving into her back catalogue!

We see Alice striving to be something great, something that transcends expectations, and society and all its norms. She simply wants to be, to be acknowledged, to be told she’s doing good. She latches herself onto professor Grimes as she feels he is the closest she’ll ever get to greatness. His proximity will reward her! Her patience, loyalty, and support will reward her. Their relationship, felt rather religious. She believed in him, only wanted to believe he had the best intentions, but that was all it boiled down to her, her faith. Either religious or very parental. The lines, however, blur. She doesn’t know whether she wants his validation, to be him, to devour him. As cliché as it sounds, all Alice needed was to believe in herself, trust in her own prowess. TO BE and something more valuable would have been afforded to her: peace of mind.

Hell being a campus was something unique; I do believe it was a hell of their own making. Being academics, this was a vision that made the most sense to them. So many trials, tribulations and academic knowledge; I was constantly on my seat and never bored. The different time lines made it such an interesting read; it added depth to the story, different perspectives, and further added to the overall plot. Grimes belongs in hell; I’m glad Law finally was able to see right through him and all the things he’s done to others.

Peter! I loved his chapters! Him wanting to never be seen as a victim, building up a persona, sacrificing himself! “God craved this boy”! His returning made me jump up and start cheering! I wish Alice and Law nothing but everything good the world has to offer!

Honestly 4.5/5! I had a blast! Thank you to NetGalley for providing this arc

Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Trapped in a relentless race against time, Alice and Peter must confront their tangled past, wavering between love and hate, while guarding dark secrets that could destroy them. The deeper they descend, the greater the danger—not just of losing their lives but of succumbing to the underworld itself. If their secrets come to light, will they escape hell unscathed, or will they be doomed to wander its eternal abyss, their memories erased forever?

Alice and Peter are prime examples of the toxicity in academia that has gone unchecked. They start as friends, but slowly, very slowly, they become rivals. Their journey to hell ultimately leads them to realize the toxicity of their surroundings and the feelings they have for each other that they’ve always had.

Overall I did really enjoy the world R F Kuang created and was back engaged by the end of this book. I’d recommend it to fantasy fans - particularly those interested in logic & philosophy with strong political commentary.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

This was my first R.F. Kuang book I have read and it was such an honour that it was a book I could review through Netgalley thanks to VanDitmar Books and Harper Collins. I had very high expectations for this book since it sounds right up my alley, but it is hard to admit that I felt quite let down.

Two academics Alice and Peter travel down to Hell to find their Professor Jacob Grimes so they can get a recommendation from him so they can graduate in Analytic Magick. By using pentagrams to use their magic and endless research they travel through several layers of Hell to find their professor.

For me, I really like the character of Peter which was only later on in the book fully describes which made me like him even more. The main character Alice however was a bit too much of a try hard for me. I felt like the beginning of the story really grabbed my attention with its fun and compelling storytelling. However, after a few chapters it just felt like waaaay to many useless flashbacks and a huge lack of worldbuilding. I felt like I never really knew where the characters were and that nothing really happened to them. It was just a lot of conversation, struggle yet no actions.

I also felt quite dumb when reading this story. Some parts of the story were so predictable and cliche where other parts that were mostly about the magic and theories of Hell were so complex and hard to follow. It actually felt like reading a thesis. Maybe that was the point? I am not sure.

At the end of the book a lot of important things happen but then feel super rushed. That part however made me change my rating. I give ‘Katabasis’ a 3.5 stars out of 5.

-Vera

Katabasis is going to be either your new favourite book or you're going to be very confused.

We follow Alice, and Peter, as they travel to Hell to retrieve the soul of their professor. The book is dark academia with academic rivals set in Cambridge some romantic undertones. I don't think there's very much romance at all and would definitely not consider this romantic fantasy. I liked the story itself, I thought the journey through Hell was interesting and loved how R. F. Kuang sees Hell (having been in some academics I completely agree with her interpretation). The side characters were fun and brilliant at times. There's a cat, Archimedes, and everyone loves a cat so bonus points for him cropping up occasionally.

R. F. Kuang is a genius as the word 'Katabasis' is ancient Greek and literally means descent, usually into the underworld. It's seen used in multiple cultures to mean a descent into the underworld to retrieve something, usually a soul or knowledge and that is the exact premise of the book. Now this should give you an idea of how in-depth and scholarly this book is. Katabasis is extremely academic with lots of philosophy, paradoxes, mathematics and physics problems. These are very rarely explained and often the characters discuss them without us (the reader) understanding.

I think Katabasis can be read two ways, and probably should be experienced both ways:
1. You can just read it and go with the information available to you (which I did because I was on holiday with poor internet access)
2. You can research every little scientific mention and problem to gain a fuller understanding (which would be time consuming but I imagine very satisfying)

I think you definitely need to read this when you're in the right headspace, this is not an easy novel to read. You definitely need some quiet time where you can focus, where as I read it on the beach and kept getting distracted. I 100% do not recommend this as a first fantasy novel and would consider it advanced reading.

Overall, I liked this, it was good but doesn't compare to Babel or The Poppy War. I think this was more along the lines of Yellowface.

Huge thanks to Harper Collins, R. F. Kuang and Netgalley for the eARC. I loved getting to read it early.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

A fantastic novel, with a great blend of dark academia, mythology, horror and fantasy.

I loved this book so much but really don;t want to give anything away for new readers. Definitely worth a read!

Any book by this author is an auto-read for me, and so when I saw Katabasis was the next book, oh, I was definitely going to read it, I feel like no matter what this author writes she brings something new or introduces a new perspective in her work and Katabasis is definitely no different.
It's not hard for me to admit this book is philosophically out of my league. I know the basics, I even did some research before I begun reading this book to have a more rounded understanding of the concepts that were going to be in this story and I don't think it really helped. The big issue like I saw someone else say here was that when these ideas were introduced they were dropped in when the story was beginning to move which made sometimes for a frustrating read. One of the signs for me of a great book is did I learn something? Yeah but maybe I learned too much.

But this doesn't take from how good the world building is, taking from multiple different 'visitors of hell' Peter and Alice have different views of what Hell looks like and what it does, and that combination of ideas and perspectives is really interesting, going from rolling sand dunes to grubby student centres and if hell is a campus, I'm never going back into academia (and this comes from someone who really loves that idea, alot).

These characters are maybe a little unlikeable, but they are excellent on the page, their rapport and their friendship, especially the way they discuss ideas is so good . Alice and Peter I feel though sometimes give more character development to a character that's well dead then themselves particularly the scenes where they discuss memories of working with Grimes but I don't really feel any chemistry between them even when she's meant to feel romantically for him but maybe that is exactly how these characters are meant to be, exhausted and well, repressed.

I do think R.F. Kuang writes some of the most original stories today and I won't step reading her work, this book is refreshing and gives me a whole new world to think about, cos honestly hell was not on my worlds I want to visit list (I mean, when is it on anyones?) but this book definitely made me want to read some of the books referenced in this one. I look forward to whereever this author takes me next.

(Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC for honest review).

Absolutely LOVED this book! I truly laughed out loud at a lot of parts and enjoyed R.F Kuang’s take on a romcom. The story had me enthralled from the first page and kept me hooked till the very end! Could not recommend more!

4.75 stars (rounded up to 5)

Honestly, I had to sit and think about this one for a while, but I have kind of managed to articulate my thoughts on Katabasis. This is a deeply complex book and I’m glad that some of the stuff in it was something I had come across in my bachelor's/master’s, otherwise I would be so confused while reading.

This book is very heavily character-driven, and personally, it’s hard to describe exactly what the plot beyond ‘two deeply disillusioned people journey to hell to retrieve their professor’. Alice and Peter are the two stars of the book and make it a masterful piece of work. From the start, the true motivations behind this journey are unclear, and you don’t know exactly why the characters are doing what they’re doing for a while. Alice is a very unreliable protagonist, possibly one of the most I’ve read in recent memory. How she thinks and does things is a result of her experiences in academia (and its toxic nature).

The unreliability only aids the narrative, and as the story progresses, it leaves you with many questions. Is this how something happened? Or are we experiencing what Alice’s perception of it? The non-linear nature of the plot, interspaced with discussions between Alice and Peter on what hell is, makes for a very interesting reading experience.

My favourite part of the book has to be R.F. Kuang’s construction of Hell. Hell is academia, hell is a university, and you need to pass. As someone who has experienced the not-so-great nature of academia and research, I have to agree. The descriptions of Hell are evocative, and if you close your eyes, you can imagine yourself next to Alice and Peter. When the duo is trying to cross into different parts of hell or battling the Shades, the sense of adventure and danger grabs you by the throat. The magic system, involving the usage of chalk to cast magic, is very deeply intertwined with academia and provided a unique take on its workings.

I have two major issues with the book. One is the pacing of the last half of the story, especially the climax. The pacing goes haywire pretty quickly, and usually I’m okay with that. But with this book, I felt like the way everything came together made for a very unsatisfying conclusion. The second one is a non-issue, but marketing this book as a love story is an injustice to the plot. Yes, the book talks about love, and yes you do end up rooting for Alice and Peter, but at the same time, it offers a wealth of knowledge and critique on the toxicity of academia, and how obsessive one can become.

Katabasis is a book that you (technically) can’t go in blind, and may require prior knowledge, but at the same time, reading it and experiencing the knowledge-intertwined narrative is a very enriching experience. This wasn’t my favourite R.F Kuang book (Babel holds the top spot), but was still a very enjoyable and worthwhile read. This is what a dark academia book is supposed to be.

Katabasis is a powerful and beautifully written story that builds slowly but pays off in a big way. Kuang’s vivid descriptions create a rich, immersive world, and the character development is thoughtful and deeply human.
One of the most impressive aspects is how she weaves myth, history, and literature into the story without ever overwhelming it. These elements add real depth without distracting from the narrative.
It’s a smart, emotionally resonant read that stays with you long after finishing.

Holy Nietzche on a stick.

I was nervous about going into this book. It's been longer than I'm willing to acknowledge since I've read Dante or Ovid or T.S. Eliot, although I have recently read Piranesi so I had that going for me, which was nice. I was hesitant to step into Hell.

But R.F. Kuang did not disappoint.

There are two ways to read this book. You don't need Dante or Homer or Euripides. You can simply open to the first page and start reading, and you'll have a grand ol' time with Alice and Peter. This book is shockingly funny, emotional, both morbid and hopeful at the same time, and will have you questioning things you didn't even know to question while appreciating life as we live it by the last page. Everything that you need is within the pages, broken down into digestible, easily understandable language that anyone and everyone can understand and appreciate. If you're reading just to enjoy the story, you'll love this book.

You can also read this slowly, look up every paradox, then go back and re-read what you surely missed the first time around, and try to wrap your head around all the tiny hidden gems and jewels that Kuang has left between sentences. You can enjoy the story and marvel at the feat of academic brilliance behind it.

I had to take a break and get my howls of laughter under control once I realised what Kuang's interpretation of Hell was. Made me doubly glad that I left academia and miss everything about it all at the same time. I'm also both amused and slightly terrified at just how many different spaces Hell has reserved especially for me (the book sniffers was a low blow, Ms. Kuang, but fine we deserved that).

This is a book that I'm excited to reread at least twice -with TWO different sets of tabs and highlighters- before I'm completely satisfied.

Five stars. Six stars. I fear this might have overtaken Babel as my favorite RF Kuang.

Katabasis is an absolutely AMAZING read. The pacing feels just right, not too fast, not too slow, though at times the description lingers a little longer than necessary. Still, Kuang’s writing style pulled me in the way only she can.

What I’ve loved most is the blend of philosophy and fantasy woven into the narrative. It gives the story a depth that feels both intellectual and magical. And then there’s the romance, or not really romance, because we all know how R.F Kuang writes these heartbreakingly good "romantic" connections, even if you can’t quite label it.

The Academic rivalry did it for me. Because who can say no to all that ? Two students diving into hell to save their professor? With sarcasm and rivalry and philosophy and literature references? You all need to read this immediately because Katabasis is out now and ready to be purchased. 10/10 for me!

#NetgalleyUK #Katabasis

Before I get into the meat of this review, I want to talk a little about localisation of books, specifically for the US market. It's not a new topic - authors like Sascha Stronach and Emily Tesh have both publically discussed their experiences of this impacting their own works - but it is a persistent one, and one that absolutely plagues R. F. Kuang's new novel Katabasis.

The novel is set in a university in the UK - Cambridge, specifically - and the main character is a PhD student at the very same. And yet, within the first two paragraphs, I counted six errors in terminology/process for something in such a setting. US and UK academic terminology are bogglingly different, and so I'm used to ignoring the odd few in reading US published books set in non-US settings. It just comes with the territory. But as the first chapter of Katabasis went on, the sheer volume of them was kind of impressive. Nearly every bit of terminology that applies to the academic setting either of the UK or of Cambridge specifically was got wrong*. And it was this consistency that brings me to an assumption - that this is an editorial decision, rather than a set of authorial snafus, especially as I know Kuang has studied in the UK, and her previous academia-centred novel Babel is much, much better on the terminological accuracy front.

If it is editorial localisation... I then have to wonder why? Is there a belief that using non-US terminology will make the book inaccessible to its US market? If so... I would like to hope that's untrue. Coming from the not-US as I do, I know first hand how easily we as a set of reading cultures have adapted to US-specific references. Baffling and nonsensical** as they are, you learn to remember what a sophomore is, what "Greek" means in a university - sorry, college - context, and an array of other tidbits of cultural richness that don't exist elsewhere. Clearly, readers of all sorts are fully willing and capable of adapting to this kind of vocabulary shift (even leaving aside that we're SFF readers who pick up a whole new set of neologisms half the time we read a book). And yet, this kind of USification persists. I assume that publishers know what they're doing and want to make money, so I have to believe based on those priors that there is a benefit to doing all of this, but even so... it frustrates me to no end.

And you might say, what's a bit of terminology among friends? Why does it matter if the person in charge of her PhD is an advisor, not a supervisor, or that she's doing a dissertation instead of a thesis? On the face of it, I would agree, it is a kind of silliness to get all het up about it when the core concepts are still being transmitted and understood, and perhaps even that localising this way means those concepts are better understood by their majority market. But to this I would say - the terminology is just the tip of the iceberg. It's an easy thing to spot. But it signals deeper, more fundamental problems, all of which build to an overarching attitude issue - the need for curiosity and willingness to understand things on their own terms, to see the world as the varied and multiple thing it is, rather than needing it to be condensed into the narrowness of a single understanding.

It says: the world can only be understood through the lens of the USA, and the dominant culture there. Where I might be spotting it in terminology, who's to say there isn't more and deeper in how the work views that world? It certainly comes up in enough works that deal with race outside of the US, because there is a wide gulf in how that topic is tackled in different cultures. Or where works centralise a Christian view of the world. As a process, it stakes a claim to a default from which other things deviate, and that should be a pernicious and discomforting thing to read, no matter where you're from.

And, yes, very simply as someone from outside that default... it rankles. I'm being shown an uncanny valley version of a thing I know so very well, and that's just unpleasant. Not only is it signalling that the things I know about are only worth including when adapted to US understanding (as an aesthetic that can be tweaked, rather than a real place out in the world), but also just that I, as an audience member for this work, am less worthy of consideration than the market it's being adapted to.

Which is a lot to pile onto a bunch of terminological inaccuracies in one book, but it isn't just one book. This is part of a pattern. And when it's a book like this, which has been released with a heap of anticipation and fanfare, it matters all the more. R. F. Kuang's work is the sort of thing the publishers are expecting to rake in the cash, getting the big marketing push all in the run up to release, and so what we see here, I think, very clearly signals what publishing thinks matters, and what will make them money. If that's "make sure a US audience never has to think about things in terms other than the ones they already know"... god help us all.

With that all being said - and inseparable from the work, because the text is not purely a story an author has come up with, but the product of all the decisions that went into creating the final version I get into my hands and brain - let's get onto this as a story object.

Katabasis follows Alice Law, who is (at some point in the late eighties to early nineties***) midway through her PhD in Analytic Magick at the University of Cambridge, under the... direction... of Professor Jacob Grimes, one of the brightest and most controversial lights in the field. Grimes is notable for the excellence of his work, especially the work he did during WW2, but also for the high failure rate of his students, and the intensity of his expectations and approach with them. He is a tyrant, and known for it, but a name that can open doors and make or break careers. More importantly, however, is the fact that he is currently dead. In order to have him open those doors and make that career that Alice so desperately wants, she has to head down to Hell and try to fetch him back. Unfortunately, her fellow student (and academic rival) Peter has had exactly the same idea.

Together, they head into an Underworld not trodden by magicians in the recent past, armed with research of a swathe of texts going back through the academic highlights of centuries all the way past the Ancient Greeks into the Hittites and Egyptians. They must use their knowledge and intelligence to try to navigate the Hell they think they know to find Grimes and bring him back, no matter the cost to them.

Through those reminisces, and their interactions, Kuang attempts to critique the idea of the genius, as well as to undercut the allure of academia by highlighting the physical and mental costs suffered by those trying to enter it, using the magic of the story (which is powered by paradoxes) to highlight the flawed thinking and uncomfortable cognitive dissonance needed to struggle through everything academia, and Grimes as its avatar, throw at them. I say "attempts", because I'm not at all sure the book succeeds either at this, or, perhaps more so, in the necessary twin aim of telling a story that engages you as a narrative object.

To tackle the thematic issues first, there are two complementary issues at work in this book. The first - Kuang seems unable to have any thematic feature of the story that she does not explain in plain, straight up text. There is very little show, no imply, no suggest. Instead, everything is laid out in clear, unambiguous language for the reader. In small doses, this can be fine, and even welcome. It's a tactic that was there plentifully in her previous novel Babel (which I enjoyed). But where in Babel it tended to be relegated to footnotes, here she just whacks it straight into the middle of the text. That alone would shift how it feels, and certainly curtail the stalling effect on the flow of the prose, but where in Babel it overshadowed the earlier part of the text and then receded, here it is omnipresent and obstructively lingering.

Which links in nicely to the second issue - Kuang dwells. On everything. Features of geography, vignettes from a character's past, little nuggets of maths or logic or literature (we'll come back to this) that turn up all over and, indeed, on those thematic explanations. The cumulative effect is of a book that cannot, on any level, let the reader get it themself, whatever "it" might be, which ultimately builds into something patronising and condescending. I found myself muttering "just get on with it" no end of times, because I wasn't getting anything from the lingering. In another book, I might not be so impatient, but that straight up, uncomplicated language for every single thing being spelled out means there's no value in the dwelling; it exists to convey a point, and once the point is conveyed there's nothing of joy to extract. I don't revel in any of the descriptions. The vignettes don't give me a deeper sense of the person. They serve, each, their single purpose and overstay their welcome, continuing on and on through the whole, not particularly short, book.

It feels, on the whole, rather more like a lecture than a story, and a lecture pitched fairly low at that.

While predominantly the reviews of Katabasis and Babel I've seen have been glowing, there is one thread that occurs in common in the negative ones, and it is one I will pick up on too: it feels like Kuang simply does not trust the reader, at any point. We can talk about how justified this may or may not be (and invoke some of the clanger discussions people had about Babel in which they demonstrated that they absolutely did not get it), but I almost think that doesn't matter. This is dark academia - intended to be in the original sense, a book that looks at what academia is and highlights the darkness inherent in it by playing it up. Satire. Caricature. And the problem with both of those approaches to themes is that there will always be someone who misses it. That is just inherent in satire, because of the way it plays with ideas. So if you try to write to avoid that, to make your point so abundantly, simplistically clear that no one could possibly ever miss what you were trying to say... it stops being satirical, because the satire needs the playfulness between ideas, rather than overt explanation. The inability to trust in the reader has cost Kuang the very essence of what she's trying to do.

Which is also a problem that comes up in another of her approaches.

To step back slightly, in the run up to its publication, I saw a number of early readers (predominantly but not exclusively on TikTok) providing reading lists of books one might read to better understand Katabasis. Those lists unsurprisingly contained a fair chunk of Renaissance and Classical literature that touched on the Underworld and journeys there (your Dantes and your Virgils, your primers of Greek mythology), alongside a grab bag of philosophy from Socrates all the way up to the 20th century. I had the slightly unkind thought that some of these readers were doing a speed run recreation of the traditional "western canon". But for all my amusement at the approach, it did make me interested in what Kuang was going to be doing - if those early readers thought reading those texts would bring greater insights into Katabasis, I wondered, how thoughtfully, how interestingly is Kuang engaging with the ideas those texts present.

She's not. I could talk around it, and phrase it more nicely, but she's not. Oh she namedrops them, don't get me wrong. And she cherry picks concepts or motifs from a goodly number. But every single goddamn time, she will explain why that thing matters in plain prose immediately afterwards, to the extent that the text reference itself no longer really serves a purpose except to say "I have read this".

Now, obviously, most of these moments happen in character. It is Alice (and Peter) who are dropping names. Surely, these two characters are doing it because this is the shibboleth they both have, the language they both speak, as people immersed in the study of all these tracts of magic and philosophy and logic and mathematics? These are PhD students! But they don't sound like any PhD student I've ever met. The way they talk about the texts, even the ones that become a little more plot crucial at various points, is horribly surface level, if it even goes that far. They came across to me, more than anything, as insecure first year undergraduates dropping names as a desperate bid to peacock their intellect, and undercut every time one of them - or the narrative - makes everybody pause to check in with the class that they understood what was being discussed and were there any follow up questions?

The whole premise that Kuang is trying to attack rests on - as Alice says, in plain text a number of times - the idea that these students are running a horrible gauntlet for the promise of a prize at the end. That prize might be prestige, or it might be the time and funds to pursue the study that they so desperately crave (Alice falls more into this bucket, though not entirely). As PhD students, Alice and Peter have already run a fair chunk of that gauntlet. They are already immersed in this world, its languages and its pitfalls. They may be more familiar with the darker side of things (oh they are), but they are also the ones who wanted or believed or craved hard enough the allure of the thing at the end. The balance, and the crux of the story, is whether the cost is worth it for that final prize, and indeed whether the prize even exists, or is a rotten, poisoned facsimile of the shining apple it appears to be. But for that to work, you need to sell the dream that these two have bought into. We need to understand what it was they were striving for, why it sold itself to them. At the start of the story, and long before, they both thought the prize was good and worth it, and that they would, in this horrible process, become the knowledgeable, clever, incisive people who could get to it.

By failing to present them as that, by failing to create even a whiff of the alluring intellectual bubble that is the overt sheen of academia that hides the rot underneath that forms the "dark" half of the equation, Kuang fails at the first hurdle. By then cramming her book full of those references, by creating all these lists of names and works, all these famous texts from the traditional (and much critiqued) canon, she's falling into the trap of the very thing she's trying to undercut. Those creators with their reading lists show us that. Read these works, they say, and know the code to Kuang. Except there is nothing to decode. None of it is necessary. You could take out those names, the sassing of Heraclitus**** and the grumbling about Dante, and the text would be the same, because she doesn't effectively use them to craft this semblance of academic glamour in the first place. The thought that kept occurring to me as I read was that this was all surface, and no substance. There are facts and names and works, but none of the connecting tissue necessary to make them all feel valuable as a coherent unit, or to sell us on the very critical idea that Alice and Peter are really very very clever.

Before I seem to be suggesting that this is a failure on every possible point, a pause. There is, under all the not particularly good writing, the core of something... if not quite good then perhaps promising. There are moments when Alice is introspecting, when Alice is examining how much she wants academia and everything she's willing to give up to get it, that approach what dark academia can do well (even if the thing she aims for is never really sold to the reader). There's one moment around half way through, where she describes drunk, giddy, silly grad students being playful with their topic, and that feels right and true, like a moment that could have happened, and would have had the effect it does in the story... but the infrequency of those moments just underscores how flat and un-right the rest of the book feels.There's an essence. But it is no more than that wisp, ephemeral, and lost under the drudge of the story apparatus.

It suggests that, underneath it all, she does get it. Her Alice and that drive for academia. Or perhaps just a very particular sort of person (given how Alice does seem to rhyme quite well with some of the characters in Babel). But getting it isn't enough. You have to make a story out of it, something that works on a sentence by sentence level, on a plot and theme level, that coheres from the granular up to the macro, rather than trading on glamour and the wisps of ideas, and these brief moments of having looked at the world and caught something real as a butterfly in your fingers. It needs to be a story, and it's there it truly fails, far more than any inaccuracy or overexplanation.

Some of that is the plain and overburdened writing I've already mentioned. But there are other key flaws. Despite that core of something true, neither of her primary characters manage to feel interesting and worth following for the majority of the time with them. Alice is introspective, but when that introspection doesn't yield substantial character depth, it just begins to feel self-important rather than worthwhile. And, more to the point, she's just not all that interesting to spend time with. Peter, whom we only see through her eyes, begins as the caricature man from seemingly all of dark academia, who comes from privilege and is easily both attractive and intelligent, and who sails through the academic world with ease in contrast to the heroine's grit and struggle. There are glimmers that he might have something more to him, but those don't resolve until fairly late in the story, and then, because of the way the narrative turns out, his development just gets dropped for a whole section, and only resolved in part by the end. Their chemistry is nearly non-existant. Even their rivalry - which is absolutely critical to the resolution of the story - feels flat and empty.

And when it comes to plotting... it's not so much that Kuang loves a bit of foreshadowing as that she signals with effusive clarity what's coming, unfailingly. There's no tension and no twists. Another victim of that plain and over-explaining style. If it evokes anything, it might be horrible inevitability, but even that implies a management of the story direction that I think might be undeserved. It's just... a sequence of events, with heavy telegraphing of the following steps, such that you must, like her characters, trudge through the wide expanse of grey sand to get to where you want to go (the ending).

Which is... a let down. If you're going to skewer academia, I think you need to do a better job of it than "the power of love" with a bit of vengeance sprinkled on for spicy seasoning.

But maybe the magic system will save it? The translation magic was one of Babel's most interesting points, no? Well... not really. There's actually a lot of similarities in how magic is described in both books. Where for Babel there's a spark that comes in the frisson between words that can't easily be translated, that cognitive texture, in Katabasis, Kuang is playing with the idea of paradox, and has her magicians need to be able to hold conflicting ideas in their head at the same time to essentially put one over on physics. The two ideas aren't the same, but they feel like they approach similar theoretical ground from slightly different angles, and so some of the sheen is worn off the paradox magic. I'll admit, I also just have less time for being walked through formal logic problems than I do for discussions of linguistics. But there's just much less time given over to exploring it as a potentially fascinating idea than perhaps it could have merited. Instead, there's much more lingering on the practicalities, the chalk and the blood and research. Which makes sense in a Watsonian sense, but from a Doylist perspective makes for much drier reading. Once again, there's a possible core of something fascinating here being let down by the connective tissue of storytelling.

And that's my main takes on this book - I just think it's a story told badly, in a number of the key ways in which a story can be told. The prose styling is weak, the plotting unexciting, the tension nonexistent and the characters insufficient to carry the load left for them. All of which then fails to present in a coherent and persuasive way that thematic core. Yes, by the end, she has absolutely conveyed the "academia can really suck and many of the ways in which it sucks are baked into the structures of it". But she's conveyed it by just straight up telling us that. It may work as an idea being passed from author to reader, but it fails at every step on an intuitive level, because she cannot for a moment let it be free of that urge to explain. To tell this story in an emotively effective way, it needed freedom, and showing, and a trust that we could follow into the (frankly not particularly intellectually difficult) territory she was leading us to. A book does not need to be able to be for everyone perfectly and without friction. In removing the friction, she has removed what might have made it a story at all.

Between this, and the fact that none of it was ever allowed to be itself in the first place, but instead translated to be more easily consumable by a specific audience, what's left is something hollow and insubstantial. Both the author and the editorial direction needed to have faith that a reader could do even a tiny amount of work for the story that this was trying to be to work. They both needed to assume anything but the worst and least of their audience. Neither of them did. And so it all falls flat, perpetuating some of the very problems that it theoretically seeks to condemn, and telling the audience in distressingly plain language how little it thinks of them.

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* The vast majority are indeed switching Cambridge/UK terms for US ones, but a small few are actually switching Cambridge specific ones for Oxford specific ones. Those... I struggle to account for, given the author did a year at both universities. Maybe Oxford just sticks harder in her memory.
**I say this tongue in cheek, but child me did take ages to internalise the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior thing.
*** This isn't specified, but can be dated via events referenced in the text. I suspect the events of the story are taking place in 1991, but it could go a year or two either way.
**** She is very briefly very dismissive of him, because like many of the pre-Socratic philosophers he presents some ideas which, now, look absolutely batshit. But what she fails to mention in her mockery of him is that he, and the other pre-Socratics, were working from first principles to try to understand the universe, and they paved the way for the more accessible later works like Aristotle. Shoulders of giants and all that. No Heraclitus sass here.

Katabasis follows two rival graduate students as they journey through hell to save the soul of their recently deceased professor. This book doesn't waste any time at the start, with the magic system and core relationships established quickly. I fell in love with Alice and Peter, and really enjoyed the combination of real-time banter and bickering and flashbacks to both their individual and shared experiences, with the glimpses into their academic rivalry giving their journey even more meaning. I don't want to go into too much detail about the plot, but along the way, they meet some interesting characters; some are friendlier than others but all are memorable in their own way.
I would recommend Katabasis to anyone who enjoyed R. F. Kuang's previous works or who just likes the sound of the concept. Don't be put off by the videos on TikTok claiming you need to read various classics before going into it; this is a book that can be enjoyed without any specialist knowledge.

This is a truly engrossing read. Alice and Peter are studying magic at Cambridge under Professor Grimes. After his death, they are terrified they won’t graduate and get the rare jobs on offer despite their excellence. They decide to journey to hell to bring back his soul. Using writings from people like Dante, TS Eliot and Orpheus who have been to hell and back previously, they plan their trip. Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds. On their journey, they meet deception, previous magicians who have become evil, a previous student of Grimes and many other characters who guide them on their way. During this trip, they reflect on and begin to understand better the abusive relationship they had with the professor and the academic world in general. Kuang is very cutting about the world. The book is riddled with references to other texts and made up magic and I’m sure a couple of extra reads would be needed to fully understand everything that is included. The relationship between Peter and Alice blossoms as they begin to understand themselves and each other, I very much liked how the book ended. 4.5 stars rounded up. I didn’t love this as much as Babel but it is highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC.

R.F. Kuang’s newest novel, Katabasis, follows two rival graduate students as they embark on a trip to hell to rescue their recently deceased professor’s soul. The magic system in this book was well developed and very fun to read. This is a book that not only entertains but also challenges you to think deeply. I loved how it wove together elements of both fictional and real-world literature, academic theory, and magical practice.

Alice and Peter are both experts in their fields of magic, and it was a joy to witness their banter and bickering as they faced hell with an academic mindset. Kuang’s vision of hell is vivid and original, drawing inspiration from classical texts while still feeling fresh and uniquely her own.

The flashbacks to Alice and Peter’s years at Cambridge gave the book a strong dark academia feel. These glimpses into their academic rivalry and personal history made their journey feel even more meaningful.

I highly recommend Katabasis to anyone who loves stories that blend intellectual depth with imaginative worldbuilding, especially readers drawn to magical academia, literary references, and complex character dynamics.

I am still trying to decide if I like this book. I do love RF Kuangs style of writing but found parts of the writing offputting.
Although Alice and Peter were well written I did find myself disliking Alice and this rather spoilt the book for me. I thought that their reason for giving up so much to travel to the underworld rather unbelievable and flippant. Still a good story though.

This review is for Katabasis by R.F. Kuang which releases in the UK on the 26th August! Thanks so much to Netgalley and Harper Voyager for giving me an eArc copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I’m a massive fan of R F Kuang, so as soon as I saw this was available, I was in! Thankfully this publisher actually has me on auto approve, so I was able to get this fairly easy, thank you Harper Collins 🥰

It was actually fairly different to how it was advertised, but I think I would have enjoyed it either way. I had the expectation for it to be more similar to her Poppy War series, something a little faster paced with fantasy elements but it was actually more along the lines of Babel, where it focuses more on academia and deeper thinking. It was pretty slow paced but I actually enjoyed it that way, and loved the detail describing everything.

I loved the setting in this book, where you seen the main character enter Hell and work their way through the levels to find their professor. Hell is such a super interesting aspect to focus on, and I loved the detail you get in the different realms found. I did feel I was probably missing a lot of background context though, as I have seen some mentions that you need to read other books before coming into this one to recognise a lot of the setting and world building. I also really enjoyed the magic in this book, with it being more based on academia style magic.

I did struggle a little with the FMC, she was really hard to relate to I felt really disconnected to them for the majority of the book. Thankfully Peter made up for it though, the loveable goofball who actually turns out to be deeper and smarter than you think, when you find out a little more on their background.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and believe it lives up to all the hype around it. It definitely will not be some people’s cup of tea, but if you love a good dark academia, then you’ll probably love this!

"Katabasis" tells the story of Alice and Peter, two Cambridge students, as they descend into the Underworld to bring their advisor back to life. Often funny and ironic in tone, the book's fundamental aspects are actually quite deep: the academic world's pursuit of perfection (sometimes at your own or others' expense), what it means to be successful, and what is really worth living for.

To me, the biggest success of the book is the Underworld itself. Kuang did an incredible job adding references from different religions, mythologies and philosophical texts to create her own version of Hell as an amalgamation of the way different cultures have perceived the concept of an afterlife across the ages. The themes were also well explored and characters go through clear development arcs.

It was an enjoyable read and R. F. Kuang fans (like me) will not be disappointed.