Kevin Maina and I step into Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, a dark-academia descent story set in 1980s Cambridge, where ambition feels like a religion and brilliance comes with a price tag.

Two rival PhD candidates make an impossible choice and head somewhere they were never meant to survive, all for the kind of academic validation that can decide a life. What follows is part underworld journey, part satire of institutional power, and part psychological reckoning. We talk about what the book suggests about mentorship, ego, co-dependence, and the quiet violence of systems that reward devotion while pretending it is merit.

If you have ever wanted something so badly it started to rearrange your morals, this one will hit.

In this episode:

• What “katabasis” means, and why descent stories endure

• Dark academia as a machine that feeds on ambition

• Rivalry, intimacy, and the thin line between collaboration and cannibalism

• Power, mentorship, and who gets to be called “brilliant”

• What you bring back from the underworld, even when you “win”