Editorial Content for Katabasis
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Graduate school is so tough that it is sending Ph.D. candidate Alice Law straight to hell. In R. F. Kuang’s buzzed-about new novel, Alice goes on a journey to hell reminiscent of the classics she studied and that the author references with a joyful nerdiness. From Virgil and Dante to Huemer and Eliot, the hell in KATABASIS is a mysterious and frightening yet knowable and surprisingly forgiving landscape.
Pushed to her limits in an extremely rigorous and competitive Analytic Magick Ph.D. program, and manipulated and abused by her advisor, the infamous Jacob Grimes, Alice is not doing well. She arrived at Cambridge full of dreams of academic progress and success but found only frustration and worse in Grimes’ lab. Even Peter Murdoch, the department’s star student with whom Alice thought she had really bonded, turns out to be unreliable. Alice feels alone and very stressed, but then something terrible happens: Grimes dies. She believes she caused his horrific death and now plans to go to hell to retrieve him.
"KATABASIS is a smart, insightful, occasionally meandering, but always enjoyable trip to hell and back. It is shiny with problems mundane and fantastical."
At the very last minute, Peter arrives and insists on going with her. Why he would join her is unclear. But before they know it, the two --- armed only with the contents of their backpacks --- find themselves walking the sandy dunes of the first area of hell, Pride, as they try to find a way to the Eighth Court, or wherever Grimes’ Shade may be residing. In Pride, they arrive at a library and in the realm of Desire, a Student Center. It turns out that hell is a lot like a university campus.
Using all of the knowledge they have gained in their studies, plus lots of intuition and relying on some interesting guides, Alice and Peter make their way through hell in pursuit of Grimes. Along the way, they must examine their relationship to each other and confront difficult truths about Grimes and academia by and large. The dangers are diverse and range from a maniacal trio of magicians and their bone-beasts to the allure of nothingness promised by the waters of the Lethe River. Mapping the ever-shifting geography of hell is just about the easiest task Alice and Peter face.
Ambition is not one of the realms of this hell. However, when combined with pride, desire and greed, it results in the kinds of crimes and actions found in the realms of wrath, violence, cruelty and tyranny. Alice and Peter traverse two worlds, where ambition has pitfalls and rewards and must try to survive their own ambitions with their humanity intact.
More than just dark academia, KATABASIS mines classical literary, philosophical and theological texts; revels in math; thinks deeply about morality and mortality; offers up a romance; lambasts university culture; and even has a sassy feline who saves the day from time to time. The characters are funny, smart, self-conscious, weird and more powerful than they realize. The story is full of so many references that it is not really worth considering each of them: readers can trust Kuang (via Alice and Peter) to share what is needed to understand this epic journey. Still, pausing to enjoy the intellectual puzzles and concepts doesn’t detract from the novel at all.
KATABASIS is a smart, insightful, occasionally meandering, but always enjoyable trip to hell and back. It is shiny with problems mundane and fantastical. And the fabulous book design needs a shout-out as well.
Teaser
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 so she can 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, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like. But there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.
Promo
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 so she can 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, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like. But there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.
About the Book
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.
