The calendar’s turned over another page, school is back in session and orange-and-black decorations are already cluttering store shelves. While the weather might still be hovering around summertime temps, readers are already turning to the cooler season — brewing steaming mugs of loose-leaf tea, curling up in a well-cushioned reading nook and cracking open a dense dark academia read. Add in the supernatural spookiness of Halloween, and you have the perfect subgenre for the upcoming season: dark academia fantasy.
The reigning queen of dark academia fantasy is none other than R.F. Kuang herself — scholar, award winner and the prolific author of titles like Babel, Yellowface and the Poppy War trilogy. Now, she’s added a new bestseller to the list: the just-released novel Katabasis, which follows two Cambridge graduate students as they journey into Hell to save their professor’s soul in the hopes of receiving a recommendation letter from him (full review here, by the way).
In celebration of the new release, I’m highlighting six other stories that capture the spirit of dark academia fantasy in a similar way to Kuang’s own work. Maybe you’d like to familiarize yourself with the genre before diving into Kuang’s latest release, or maybe you’ve already blazed through Katabasis and need something to fill the book-hangover void. Either way, you’ll be sure to come away from this recommendation list with a read that will blend the rigor of academia with scintillating fantastical elements, perfect for the upcoming cozy reading season.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang
While it might seem redundant to recommend an R.F. Kuang book in the Katabasis book list, we believe in covering all our bases. If you somehow are tuned into the R.F. Kuang hype but haven’t yet gotten to Babel, what are you waiting for? Let this be the sign you need to pick it up! BookTrib has covered Babel before, but our determination to keep highlighting it shows you just how much of an impact it had on us — and how much it will surely have on you.
Set in an alternate timeline of the 1800s, this novel follows Robin Swift — a Cantonese orphan brought to England by a professor who works in Oxford’s Royal Institute of Translation (aka, the titular Babel). There, Robin shows great promise at silver working, the alchemical process of deciphering otherwise impossible translations using magic-infused silver. It’s silver working that’s propelled the British Empire to its place as the world superpower — at the expense of the countries ground down in the Empire’s brutal colonization. Described as “a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,” Babel challenges its readers to critically examine the darker side of academia, both in fiction and in our own reality.
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
Seeing as one of its comp titles was Babel, we think it’s fitting to follow our R.F. Kuang recommendations with Blood Over Bright Haven — a vital and scathing retort to the discrimination that pervades academic circles. As the first woman to ever hold the position of High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry, Sciona has clawed her way to academic respect — or so she thought. But even with her new title, she’s subjected to more ridicule from her male peers when she’s assigned a janitor for a lab assistant.
It turns out, however, that this janitor-turned-assistant is harboring a secret: he was once a nomadic hunter who is now determined to understand the magic used to kill his family and conquer his tribe. And now that he’s by Sciona’s side, he’s been handed the golden opportunity to do exactly that. Tensions between them are more than a little strained — but soon they’re forced to band together against those who would rather stay in power by any means necessary.
Dark fantasy readers will recognize M.L. Wang as the author of The Sword of Kaigen, and her newest release takes the themes of that bestseller to new heights. Strap in for a read that doesn’t shy away from the brutality of misogyny and racism in academia (make sure to check the trigger warnings) but instead faces them head-on.
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Hugo and World Fantasy Awards winner Emily Tesh hits it out of the park once again with this newest release. The Incandescent (reviewed here on BookTrib!) follows Doctor Walden, the Director of Magic at Chetwood School. She’s got her work cut out for her — teaching students, navigating the red tape of administration and, most importantly, warding the school’s boundaries to protect the institution from demonic attacks.
But Walden isn’t just Director of Magic; she’s also one of the most powerful magicians in all of England. While this makes shielding the school a little easier, it also increases the pressure on her — and increases the amount of demonic attention Walden is in danger of receiving. But with six hundred students’ lives in her hands, she won’t be backing down, no matter how dangerous things get.
Readers familiar with the world of education can find a book that both distracts from their struggles and affirms them. After all, Walden is an enthusiastic but exhausted teacher dealing with an unsustainable amount of responsibility piled onto her. Sound familiar? But thanks to the fantastical elements, plus a background sapphic romance, this read manages to not get too real — it is a magic school plagued with demon attacks, after all.
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Unlike The Incandescent, The Bewitching is a read anything but comforting, instead veering into where dark academia fantasy meets horror. This multigenerational saga follows Alba, Minerva and Beatrice across the three women’s different timelines. As Alba’s great-granddaughter, Minerva shares a deep bond with her — but she also has a vested interest in Beatrice Trembley, the famous novelist who once attended the same Massachusetts college that Minerva now studies at. And when researching this enigmatic author, Minerva discovers that Trembley may have held a connection to the occult. That suspicion hits deep, because Minerva’s childhood was once full of her great-grandmother’s stories of witches. Not the witches of sanded-down fairy tales, but of real witches — cruel, capricious and utterly terrifying.
The Bewitching does exactly what its title implies to the reader — taking them over in a spell that will keep their eyes glued to the page. The story is absolutely teeming with unsettling imagery, hold-your-breath suspense and a haunted atmosphere that pervades the whole story. Blending dark academia, Mexican folklore, themes of intergenerational trauma and — of course — witchcraft, Moreno-Garcia crafts a story as unsettling as it is unforgettable.
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
For those in search of a book that’s more on the backlist, this 2023 release is sure to do the trick. The Cloisters is a dark academia fantasy firmly set in reality — specifically, at the Met Cloisters in Washington Heights. There, we follow Ann Stilwell, a disillusioned researcher with a mysterious past. She’d expected a job at the far more famous Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Upper West Side and is less than thrilled to find herself at its small, shabby cousin further uptown (personally, I disagree with Ann’s first impression — the Met Cloisters is lovely). But within the stone castle structure, amid the medieval tapestries and stately pillars, she finds herself pulled into studies she never would have predicted: because as her fellow researchers pore over the history of divination and fortune telling, Ann happens upon a 15th-century tarot deck that has the power to do exactly that.
Maybe Hays is a new author to you, or maybe you’re familiar with her more recent psychological drama, Salt Water. Either way, you’re sure to find The Cloisters utterly hypnotizing; our reviewer definitely thought so! It’s all too easy to slip into the immersive imagery of its medieval treasures and reach out for its unique, tarot card-based magic system. But when academic ambitions turn deadly, it turns out that those cards are far more dangerous than they appear.
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
While this read falls more on the epic fantasy side of the scale, I’d argue that it still does the trick for those seeking a magic-infused tale with a dark academia twist. In it, Neema Kraa is the illustrious (and rather unusual) High Scholar to the emperor. The problem? The emperor just died, and now the succession hinges on a tournament of the best warriors and strategists in the land. Seven candidates come to compete … only for one of them to be murdered. It’s now Neema’s job to identify the killer before they strike again, or — even worse — become the empire’s new leader.
C.L. Clark, award-winning author of The Unbroken, calls The Raven Scholar “as clever as its namesake,” and I can’t help but agree. The book is certainly a “brain on read,” expecting a reader’s full attention (much like the reality of studying in academia!). But in my opinion, that’s a good thing; Hodgson doesn’t talk down to the reader, but instead trusts us to follow along on the intricate twists and turns of Neema’s investigation. And while it requires your concentration, The Raven Scholar never feels like slogging through a boring textbook. It’s sharp, quick-witted and paced at a breakneck speed that will leave you dizzy by the time you reach the last page. So get out a notebook and your favorite pen for taking notes — you’re in for one hell of a required reading.