There are new things here. The journey into hell has been done, but it hasn’t been done quite the way R. F. Kuang does it ... We’re once again treated to the power of Kuang’s mind. It takes a smart person to write geniuses, and Alice and Peter are brilliant, if blinkered ... A more mature and less showy novel than Kuang’s earlier work ... Hell filtered through a scholar’s eyes.
A rich combination of dream vision, acerbic satire, intellectual playfulness, and human drama, Katabasis should more than satisfy readers who enjoyed Kuang’s earlier novels.
An infernal twist on the campus farce ... Kuang isn’t subtle. She doesn’t allude; she indicts ... This is a novel that believes in ideas – just not the cages we build for them ... Far from perfect ... But none of that really matters – especially if you have a score to settle.
Explores the hells we create for ourselves, as Peter and Alice consider the delusions they wrap themselves in and the sacrifices they’ve made to get this far. Witty, propulsive, feral, and clever.
