Aimee Gunther reviewed Katabasis by R. F. Kuang
I couldn't have read this closer to my time in grad school
4 stars
R.F. Kuang accurately knows academia.
Also hell and stuff
Paperback, 422 pages
Published Aug. 26, 2025 by 47North.
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.
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 same conclusion.
R.F. Kuang accurately knows academia.
Also hell and stuff
A tumbling of traumatic scenes in hell and in university, a logical-paradox-driven magick gives as many fun revisits to mathematical puzzles as to Dante's Inferno or the Rigveda. Less convinced of the plot and character motivations, but the pace keeps up well enough.