Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

Blurb:

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.

Review:

“If I die, I die,” said Alice. “But there's no life otherwise, I think. Life is an activity that's got to be sustained. You have to fight for it.”

―R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

In Katabasis, Alice Law is in constant competition with her colleague, schoolmate, and fellow graduate student who shares her same advisor: Peter Murdoch. Pitted against him in college, success, career, and life, she seeks to be better than him in every pursuit—even if it means resurrecting their advisor from the dead after his unfortunate death leaves her without enough funding and without proper representation for her dissertation. The last thing she expects is for Peter to force her to take him with her to revive their advisor, and to have to survive more than Hell to get their professor back. She’ll have to survive the infuriating, intelligent, and alluring Peter Murdoch himself.

I’ve only read one book before now by Kuang, and it was her recent release Babel. Just like her prior publication, this novel was absolutely bursting with gritty environments, terrible tragedies, loathsome secrets, and a world to parallel the one we live in, in reality. 

Kuang truly has a talent for worldbuilding her stories close to urban civilization, and that closeness immerses readers further into the stories she tells than most books you might pull from a shelf at a bookstore or library.

Reading a book by Kuang is like asking for a lecture on something profound from one of the best professors in the world, and Katabasis is no different. I completely believe the best stories are written with themes and with intelligence, and this author manages that balance tenfold. 

Kuang’s world building encompasses real-life logic from Psychology, Linguistics, History, Philosophy, and so many subject areas that it can be boggling to first-time readers, but still thoroughly enjoyable.

In Katabasis, the narrative starts out slowly but picks up a rapid pace that left me sitting on the edge of my seat and practically tearing out the pages to read what happens next. It’s an immersive, engaging, and sophisticated novel that only one of the best authors of modern times could possibly write. Kuang is truly a groundbreaker in the urban fantasy and historical fantasy genre, with her expertise and education forming a breeding ground for expansive, intricate, and original concepts for stories unlike anything readers have seen before.

While I do think Kuang’s work is an acquired taste and that some readers wouldn’t enjoy her narratives as much as others, every tale I’ve read by her so far has been one I can’t stand to put down—especially as the climax draws near. 

Although I do prefer Babel over Katabasis as a whole, I still thoroughly enjoyed my readthrough of this book and would recommend it to any reader looking to expand their reading repertoire, and especially college students looking to dive into the worlds of literature and fiction. Kuang makes it possible for advanced academics and fantasy stories to collide in a way that is digestible and compelling for any type of reader.

Katabasis is absolutely worth the read and re-read. Although not considered a romance, this novel has passion, drive, and conflict worth going to Hell for. I can’t wait to dive into more of Kaung’s stories!