What Moves the Dead

So…probably should have read House of Usher first. As such, references and the quality of the adaptation is lost on me. But otherwise, what a delightfully horrible book! It takes quite a lot for horror to get to me, but Kingfisher’s prose is vibrant, detailed, and wonderfully skin-crawling.

The main character has great narration with lots of care put into kan descriptive choices and dialogue. This book touches on many topics; fungi, war and PTSD, the unfortunate state of being American (lol), and queerness that is respected and ingrained in the man characters culture of kan home country.

4/5 and an excellent, quick read! Recommended for those who want body horror, queer rep, characters with actual personalities, and thrilling writing that had me eating up the pages.

So, it's not very scary or anything. It also has soldiers, which often makes me dislike stories. But ah. This one is exactly right for me. It has the right kind of mushrooms and queerness and feminism and I enjoyed so many little details in it.

Without being too spoilery, I never, when I started reading this book, thought I would finish it feeling pity for a fungus, but here we are.

I love Poe, and Usher is one of my favorite stories of his, and this retelling is absolutely masterful. The descriptions of the grounds and house are atmospheric and almost dripping with dread, which fills every page from page one and grows slowly, but incessantly, until you reach the end.

Creepier version of Edgar Allan Poe's story of The Fall of the House of Usher.