Katabasis discussion

Is this like Babel, I found Babel too long winded and slow paced. I love the Poppy Wars series.

I have read Babel, and I don’t think the two are quite the same. Babel is much slower-paced, and the only truly interesting part comes at the end of the book. Katabasis, on the other hand, is much faster-paced and more plot-driven. Perhaps the only thing they have in common is their philosophical themes, but even that is fairly limited.

I haven’t read The Poppy War series, though, so I can’t really comment on that.

I've read both, and the story of "Katabasis" moves more quickly than that of "Babel". But the second novel is more personal, in a sense, than "Babel"; it is exactly what the title says, a catabasis, the story of one person's journey through the underworld in search of knowledge. And as such, it's very much the story of Alice Law, the protagonist, and to a lesser extent her companion Peter Murdoch; so the tale is as much a journey through Alice's mind as it is through the landscape of Hell.