DECEMBER 12, 2025 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Lauren Larson
You have seen it on your For You Page time and time again: a dark academia novel with action, suspense and academic rivalry. I usually try to avoid novels that sound like they would go viral on BookTok, but when R.F. Kuang released “Katabasis” this year, I set aside my distaste.
Author of the “Poppy War” trilogy, “Babel: An Arcane History” and “Yellowface,” R.F. Kuang has written some of my favorite novels of all time. She is a talented author who conveys nuanced themes while delivering an incredible story I can’t put down.
What Kuang writes, I read.
Her newest novel, “Katabasis,” centers around two Cambridge University graduate students, Alice Law and Peter Murdoch, who literally descend into Hell to retrieve the soul of their advisor.
Their advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes, has a reputation so renowned in the studies of Analytic Magick that a letter of recommendation from him is a golden ticket to any job, program or grant.
After a magical accident leads to Grimes’ gruesome and early demise, Alice and Peter reluctantly travel to Hell in a desperate attempt to salvage their future prospects. When they arrive, the landscape of Hell is startlingly familiar, taking on the form of Cambridge University itself.
Together, the two travel through the Circles of Hell as they attempt to find their professor and convince the King of Hell to send him home with them.
On their journey, the two grad students must navigate the familiar yet otherworldly terrain, evade bloodthirsty magicians and contend with the minefield of their relationships with each other and their professor.
One thing I love about this book is that Kuang only gives as much buildup as is needed for the audience to understand what is happening before she jumps into the story. The audience learns about the world, the magic system and the characters through the plot.
She shows us the accident that leads to the death of their professor and then the audience descends into Hell with Alice and Peter in the next chapter.
This fast-paced form of storytelling really hooks the reader and maintains intrigue and suspense for the whole novel as we learn more about who Alice is, what her relationship with Peter is like (complicated, to say the least) and what the laws of this universe are.
Kuang dedicates a lot of time to world-building in this novel through short expositional chapters that explain the primary principles that govern the world which read like a textbook on Magick, which is fitting for a novel centered around academia.
While the magic system is not particularly unique, Kuang’s integration and reinterpretation of classic literature about Hell, such as the protagonists viewing the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a guidebook, is fascinating and ultimately delivers a scathing critique of higher academia.
Having studied at renowned universities such as Georgetown, Cambridge and now Yale, Kuang is perhaps one of the best authors to voice these issues.
Her critique is illustrated through the characters, the events of the story and within the setting itself: Hell is the university.
Kuang also critiques the punishing nature of graduate programs through Alice’s obsessive and unhealthy nature. Alice works herself to the bone attempting to earn her Ph.D. and impress her professor.
Grimes, her advisor, is cruel and abusive but is considered so brilliant that he is untouchable. The abuses of power in both the undead and the living worlds are uncomfortable but familiar.
Kuang takes the opportunity to ring the alarm bell through her masterful storytelling and compelling characters.
Despite the fascinating and profound themes and messages, I have to admit that Katabasis felt long and laborious to read.
This novel really drags at specific points, and while Kuang makes it worth it with a satisfying, cathartic ending, I often felt like I was in Hell alongside the characters.
The characters themselves are complex and realistic, but this realism also makes them incredibly frustrating. Alice, whose perspective dominates the majority of the novel, often chooses paths that are absolutely constructive toward her character arc but make me want to slam my head against the wall.
Overall, “Katabasis” is a high-quality novel with strong world-building and an engaging plot. It is refreshing to read a book that uses tropes like academic rivals and fantasy world-building for more than a TikTok marketing ploy.
As a student who participates in the structure and culture of academia, I encourage this book to other students at CC who are interested in thinking about the grind lifestyle of academia and the harm it enables.