Happy Halloween!! This episode, we join Alice and Peter, two PhD Students in Magick studies, as they journey to hell to save their advisor in R.F. Kuang’s new fantasy novel Katabasis. We start off spoiler free in this first of three episodes with our initial reactions, thoughts on pretentiousness in relation to academic prestige and precarity, and who we ultimately think this book is for.
As a bit of a content warning, Katabasis deals with abuse and suicidal ideation. Because these themes are pretty central to the novel, we won’t be able to provide specific timecodes for when it comes up in our own discussion, but wanted to make sure you know going in.
What's Sparking Joy this episode: Silent Hill f and Love in the Cloud
Episode was recorded October 19, 2025
Show Notes:
Other lit mentioned this episode: His Dark Materials, Hadestown, The Wasteland by T S Elliot, Dante's Inferno, Alice in Wonderland, The Stormlight Archive, Witch Hat Atelier, A Discovery of Witches
On Future SLL Episodes: Isekai and Transmigration, Trope Spotlight: Forced Proximity, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End
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Our cover art is by Charcooll (https://www.instagram.com/charcooll/). The SLL Theme music is “Pluck It Up” by Dan Henig. What’s Sparking Joy BGM is "Candy-Coloured Sky" by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphr;Released by Paper Crane Collective; Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com; Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US.
Sex. Love. Literature. is a pop culture podcast that relishes the romantic, the sexy, and the scandalous in media. Join pop culture scholars (and besties) Ayanni and Corinne as they deep dive into why the “sex-stuff” in media matters. Main episodes drop the last Friday of the month.