Katabasis has all the ingredients of something special. The premise is genuinely original, the worldbuilding is ambitious, and the early layers of hell are exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're in for something great. But somewhere in the second half it all falls apart, and by the end you're left wondering what the point of any of it was.
I've been seeing Katabasis everywhere, in bookshops, online, all over my feed. As someone who read and genuinely enjoyed Babel, I was excited to finally dive in. But somewhere between the first page and the last, that excitement slowly faded chapter by chapter, and I found myself increasingly let down by both the hype and the book itself.
Let's start with the positives, because there are some. Katabasis follows Alice Law and her academic rival Peter Murdoch, two students so dependent on their professor Jacob Grimes for recommendation letters and career validation that when he dies in a freak magical accident, they literally descend into hell to bring him back. It's a genuinely original premise, and underneath it lies an interesting commentary on the toxic and exploitative side of elite university culture. The worldbuilding flourishes in the early chapters, and each layer of hell feels distinct and thoughtfully constructed. Kuang clearly put a lot of thought into how this underworld functions, and when the book lets itself breathe in those early layers, you can feel the imagination and ambition behind it. The side characters, particularly Peter, are reasonably well written, nothing extraordinary but solid enough to keep you engaged. Fair warning to sensitive readers as well: this book is very gory, with detailed and graphic descriptions throughout. For fellow grimdark fans that might actually sound appealing, and to be fair, it is one of the book's more distinctive qualities.
Now for the negatives, and there are more of them. The biggest problem is Alice herself. She is a frustratingly flat and erratic protagonist who constantly contradicts herself, to the point where it becomes more annoying than compelling. There is a version of this character that could have been fascinating, a young woman so psychologically entangled with an abusive and tyrannical mentor that she descends into literal hell for him. But that complexity never quite materialises on the page. Meanwhile Peter outshines her with a better backstory and far more interesting presence throughout. It is a significant imbalance that is hard to ignore in a book this long.
The pacing is the other major issue. The first half of the book, where Kuang's worldbuilding gets room to breathe, is genuinely great and exactly what made me think this could be something special. But the second half abandons that momentum in favour of endless flashbacks about Alice's relationship with Grimes. The layers of hell that made the concept so exciting get rushed and skipped over, while we spend page after page on backstory that simply does not earn the time it's given. You keep reading, waiting for it all to click into place. And when you reach the end expecting all of it to pay off? It doesn't. The entire journey feels unresolved and pointless. I just read 500-something pages and this is it?
This is also something I noticed in Babel. Kuang has a tendency to over-explain and info-dump, as if constantly reminding you how well-researched she is. We get it. But it comes at a real cost to the book's momentum, and Katabasis suffers for it more than Babel did.
In the end, Katabasis had an incredible foundation and wasted most of it. The concept is there, the world is there, and the thematic ambition is there. But a frustrating protagonist, a second half that loses the plot, and a payoff that never arrives make it a deeply unsatisfying read. If you're already a devoted fan of R.F. Kuang and the synopsis intrigues you, it might still be worth your time. But would I read it again? No.
3 out of 5 stars.