Katabasis

This is a delightful fantasy, which might be particularly appropriate for now adult fans of the Harry Potter series. Set in Cambridge in an alternate reality in which magic is possible via the suspension of beliefs via philosophical paradoxes, the work is a wonderful fantasy involving, as the title indicates, a journey to hell by a pair of graduate students studying magic to save their mentor. The work features an engaging narrative, a scathing critique of academia and a well constructed and intellectually rich world. Readers will be exposed to Western (ancient Greek and medieval Christian) and Asian (Chinese and Indian) visions of the world, as well as philosophy (logic in particular) and even quantum mechanics. The story ends satisfactorily, although I was left hoping that the author would publish a sequel, as I would love to learn more about the characters' adventures following the conclusion of the novel. This novel will be particularly appreciated by fantasy fans who have been exposed to academia in postgraduate contexts.

It feels to me like Kuang started out writing a satire of grad school and then she turned the story into a hero’s journey. The second half of the book made it hard to put down. It left me with a lot of questions, such as did she intend to imply there is a real life equivalent of analytical magick? The first half read like a farce about the demands of grad school, and I did not understand Alice or Peter. However, their characters got fleshed out very well in the second half of the book. Rebecca F. Kuang painted a very dark picture of “hell”—not that anyone thought it was gonna be a nice place, but Her vision of hell went beyond dark. It was full of references I was unfamiliar with. In the Los Angeles Times, Valorie Castellanos Clark wrote an excellent review of the book. I feel like I needed to know more about other writers’ visions of hell to really understand the references in “Katabasis.” At the time I read the book (late August 2025, when it came out,) I was unaware that there’s a Netflix show called “kaos” and a book by leigh bardugo called “hell bent.” in Clark’s LA Times review, she also mentioned Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “Gods of Jade and Shadow” (2019) and classics such as “dante’s inferno.” I’m referencing clark’s review because it was so well written and thorough. I also read a great review of “Katabasis” in ancillary review. I gave the book 4 stars because the first half presented the characters as unsympathetic and cardboard-y, though by the end, they were much more believable.

R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis is a descent — not just into Hell, but into the perilous territory where brilliance collapses under its own weight. After Babel, a masterpiece of intellectual storytelling and emotional resonance, many readers (myself included) entered Katabasis with high expectations. What we found was a novel so drenched in self-aware cleverness that it forgot to be engaging. The premise is undeniably fascinating: what if every account of Hell — Dante’s, Virgil’s, even the mythic descent of Aeneas — was based on real journeys? In Katabasis, postgraduate magician Alice Law and her colleague Peter Murdoch descend through the eight courts of Hell to retrieve their lost professor, Jacob Grims. The setup promises mystery, danger, and a deep metaphysical exploration of sin and intellect. Yet, somewhere between the chalk pentagrams and philosophical monologues, the story loses its pulse. Where Babel wove historical and linguistic detail into the fabric of its story, Katabasis drowns in exposition. Nearly every page pauses for a lecture — on Nietzsche, Möbius, Schrödinger, or some obscure philosopher — as if the reader were auditing an overlong seminar. The result feels less like a novel and more like an academic performance. Kuang is undeniably intelligent, but the need to prove that intelligence becomes exhausting. The writing itself is uneven. At times, Kuang’s prose is beautifully dark and atmospheric; at others, it reads like a Tumblr post. Lines such as “You know very well what a heap is. You know it when you see it. It is like porn.” may be clever references, but they collapse under their own absurdity in context. Even the use of casual language — “You couldn’t just nope back out into Limbo.” — feels jarringly out of place in what should be a mythic, haunting descent. Characterization fares no better. Alice, our protagonist, is difficult to like — not because she’s morally complex, but because she’s written with so little warmth or humanity. Peter, meanwhile, is the archetype of the detached, tortured academic, but without the charisma to justify his presence. Their dynamic, intended as enemies-to-lovers, rarely convinces. Emotional engagement is sacrificed for intellectual sparring, and by the time Alice begins to show agency in the later chapters, it’s too little, too late. That said, Katabasis is not without merit. Kuang remains a skilled world-builder; her vision of Hell — from its weather and architecture to its oppressive, claustrophobic mood — is vividly drawn. There are moments of striking beauty, particularly in her more introspective passages: “I wish I were the night, so that I might watch your sleep with a thousand eyes.” But these moments are fleeting, buried beneath layers of theory and overexplained logic. Ultimately, Katabasis is a novel of ambition undone by excess. It’s intellectually dense but emotionally hollow — a work that mistakes difficulty for depth. Readers who enjoy cerebral fantasy and philosophical puzzles may find something to appreciate here, but those seeking the narrative magic of Babel will likely come away disappointed. In the end, it’s a book that respects your brain but forgets your heart. → Babel was a love letter to language. Katabasis is a lecture about it.

I am so super exited to read the book, however the condition of the book isn’t “perfect” it’s readable and it’s actually not a big issue but the corners of the cover were bent, which is you know not the ideal, but than again not a hugeeeee problem- but definetly an issue that should be fixed. The print is fine, there isn’t a misprint

Llegó en tiempo y forma. Y en excelentes condiciones. Muero por leerlo.

Unfortunately the dust cover was damaged, looked like a manufacturing error. I sent it back.

Tutto perfetto

I enjoyed every page of this book. It made me reminisce about my academic days and toll it took to achieve and outperform my peers but yet I still crave for the euphoric feeling of learning and discovery. But at the end, living life and experiencing the mundane to the extraordinary is what makes mortality so beautiful and devastating. Always loved Kuang’s work and this book is easily in my top 3 of all-time.