Katabasis

Bestseller Kuang’s latest foray into dark academia (after 2022’s Babel) takes readers on a clever and deeply cerebral, if sometimes fatiguing, journey through hell. Alice Law is an outstanding graduate student in Cambridge’s Analytical Magick program—a field that combines magic, philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics—with a troubled relationship with her adviser, the brilliant Professor Jacob Grimes. When Professor Grimes dies in a gruesome accident, Alice grudgingly agrees to work with her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, to bring him back. Their transformative journey through the underworld is explicitly based on previous sojourns, directly referencing Dante, Orpheus, and more, but Alice and Peter soon find themselves in over their heads in a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Vivid side characters—like Elspeth, a former Analytical Magick student who died by suicide a decade before and now leads a lively existence on the river Lethe—invigorate what occasionally becomes a dour, plodding trek and persistent readers will be rewarded with a thrilling third act. It’s not perfect, but Kuang’s devoted fans will find this hits the spot. Agent: Hannah Bowman, Liza Dawson Associates. (Aug.)