What Moves the Dead

First edition, 160 pages

Published July 11, 2022 by Tor Nightfire.

ISBN:
978-1-250-83075-3
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From T. Kingfisher, the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones, comes What Moves the Dead, a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

2 editions

Not too creepy

Alex Easton, a sworn soldier, hurries to visit kan dying friend Madeline.

I usually love Kingfisher books, but I was quite indifferent to this one. A retelling of “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allan Poe, but Kingfisher gives various characters more depth.

I tend to avoid horror, as I’m either too terrified, or completely unmoved by the various ghastly happenings. “What Moves the Dead” falls into the latter category. I didn’t find it creepy at all, and there was no mystery to solve. However, I did enjoy the Gothic Horror aesthetic, and found the idea of Gallacian having seven sets of personal pronouns interesting, particularly the inclusion of a solider-specific one.

I’ll probably read the sequels eventually, but I’m not rushing off to do so. All in all, it was fine.

reviewed What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Is this Mycophobia or Mycophillia? (Audiobook Review)

As an amateur mycologist who has been actively involved in community building and engagement around environmental justice and mycology, I must ask, does this book promote mycophobia or mycophillia? I have never read a T. Kingfisher book, but picked this up because I heard it had mushrooms.

I was excited when this book started off featuring a character named Eugenia Potter, implied to the fictional aunt of real mycologist and author of the Peter Rabbit children's books: Beatrix Potter. There are many aspects to real mycological concerns around things like species identification. There's also references to the important discussion of sexism within mycology.

I also do appreciate that the main character Alex (they/them in English, Ka/Kan in native fictional heritage) is one that would not typically get attention as a retired female soldier. When it comes to gender and pronouns, I am torn.

Alex is from a …

Review of 'What Moves the Dead' on 'Storygraph'

This is a novella based on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. In the 1890s; Easton, a former soldier of the Gallacia, visits kan old friend Madeline Usher at her family’s ancestral seat on the news that she may be dying. The house is decaying and covered in fungus; only a few servants remain (Madeline’s maid jumped from the roof a few months prior) while her nervous wreck of a brother has only an American doctor to rely on who is baffled by Madeline’s ailment. As Easton attempts to help the family, ka uncovers a mystery around the glowing lake and unsettling wildlife that just won't die.

If you’re up for some gothic horror, mycelial zombie hares, a soldier whose gender/pronouns are simply “soldier”, and regular English jibes at Americans then this is worth picking up. I enjoyed the characters a lot, especially Easton and …

Creepy, gothic, fungal homage

I enjoyed this from start to finish. I really liked the characters and connected with Alex Easton immediately. The remote location constrained the setting and I felt immersed in it. The contemporary treatment of gender was interesting, relevant to the story and understated. And the story was as creepy as heck.

Review of 'What Moves the Dead' on 'Goodreads'

Oh my gosh, I was really really enjoying this book up until maybe the last three chapters. Incredible how it pivoted so hard. I couldn't help but compare this to Mexican Gothic, a book I was a fan of. But this improved on that story in so many ways. The creepiness factor was really dialed up, and I found myself to be legitimately freaked out at times. I loved the body horror and almost alien, incomprehensible horror that they were trying to uncover. However all of that went downhill when Madeline, quite predictably, arose from the dead, being controlled by the fungus. That in and of itself wasn't an issue. I thought that was creepy. But having possessed a human, it gave voice to the fungus, which was apparently semi-conscious, had motivations, and was like a child wanting to learn more. There was a comically bad scene of Madeline moaning …

What Moves the Dead

I'm sure I read The Fall of the House of Usher at some point, but I didn't retain enough that I had any particular expectations for the direction of the plot, etc.

However, I did read Mexican Gothic relatively recently, so I spent a good deal of What Moves the Dead, once the overall shape of the story became apparent, nodding along and waiting for the characters to catch up - it gave me a chuckle to see the reference to Mexican Gothic in the author's note.

Great writing, an intriguing reimagination of the classic.

Puts the right flesh on the bones of Poe's story

Content warning mild spoilers for the whole book

Puts the right flesh on the bones of Poe's story

I found The Fall Of The House Of Usher intriguing but ultimately frustrating, and judging by the author's note at the end of this book, so did Ursula Vernon. Her reworking does a great job of keeping the atmosphere of the original while filling it out to be much more of a satisfying story, with clearer reasons behind what happens and much more compelling characters.

I love how the narrator has so much of their own story, and it's mostly made relevant to the core story of the book. And the mystery aspect is very well done, with that tantalising sense that we as readers are just slightly ahead of Easton & Denton in figuring out what's going on and what will have to happen. I also appreciated how Roderick gets to be more of an actor in this telling rather than a pure victim, and I'm intrigued by …