Books Like Katabasis

Why Each Pick

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Kuang's earlier dark academia novel, set at Oxford instead of Cambridge. An orphan from Canton trains as a translator at an institute whose word-based magic powers the British Empire. It shares Katabasis's magic built from scholarship and its sharp view of academic ambition. It is more political and less playful, a 560-page argument about empire, and its final act is grim.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

For students devoted to a brilliant, dangerous teacher. A circle of classics students at an elite Vermont college fall under the spell of their professor and Greek ideals, and cross a terrible line. Like Alice and her advisor, they would do almost anything for his approval. There is no magic and no underworld, just a slow, literary crime novel told in hindsight, at 559 pages.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

For an otherworld that has to be mapped and reasoned through. Piranesi keeps careful journals about an endless house of statues and tides, until clues suggest someone has been lying to him. It shares Katabasis's sense of a strange realm explored with a scholar's patience and its pleasure in careful reasoning. It is short, at 272 pages, and gentle where Kuang is biting.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

For magic taught as a rigorous academic subject, with rivals at every turn. Kvothe fights his way into a legendary university where his tuition, enemies and ambitions all threaten his place. Like Alice, he is gifted, proud and under constant pressure to prove himself. It is a long, classic fantasy adventure rather than a satire, and the trilogy is unfinished.

Circe by Madeline Miller

For myth retold by a sharp woman who refuses the role she is given. Circe, a minor goddess dismissed by her family, discovers witchcraft and is exiled to an island, where heroes of Greek myth pass through her life. Like Katabasis, it is steeped in classical stories and in a woman claiming her own power. It is lyrical and inward, about gods rather than graduate school.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

For old myths loose in the modern world. Ex-convict Shadow Moon is hired by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday and pulled into a war between the old gods immigrants brought to America and new gods of media and technology. It shares Katabasis's love of mythology and its journeys between worlds. It is a sprawling road novel, at 541 pages, with no academia at all.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

For a version of Hell played for laughs. An angel and a demon who have grown fond of humanity try to stop the apocalypse, while Heaven and Hell behave like squabbling bureaucracies. It shares Katabasis's satirical streak and its pleasure in turning the afterlife into something absurd. It is a comic fantasy, much lighter, with none of Kuang's darkness.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

For the philosophy underneath. Camus starts from whether life is worth living and builds his idea of the absurd around Sisyphus, condemned in the underworld to push a boulder uphill forever. Katabasis treats Hell as a place to think hard about logic and meaning, and this short essay, at 212 pages, is the nonfiction pick for readers who enjoyed that side most.