3.5/5 stars. This was great! I'm a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan, so I loved the reimagining. The writing was great, and the story definitely got my heart racing and gave me goosebumps.

This cover definitely intrigued me to read this book. I was surprised by how short it was but it was the perfect length for this story. This story held many combined genres, was inclusive, and really sucked the reader in. I didn't love the scenes with the hares, but I'm ultra sensitive to animals.

This book was unique, interesting, and fun to read. While I enjoyed reading it for personal reading, I will not be adopting it for my classroom. Thank you to the publisher!

T. Kingfisher could write an encyclopedia that I'd want to read, so when I saw that What Moves The Dead was a revamping of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", I was giddy with excitement. Yes, giddy. I said what I said. Instead of a regurgitated version, Kingfisher has added her own reconception to Poe's short story and it's a doozy.

As with Poe, Kingfisher begins her tale with a first-person narrative. However, unlike Poe and his exceptionally vague male protagonist, Lieutenant Alex Easton is a genderqueer retired soldier friend of the female Usher—a deviation from Poe's who is a friend of the male sibling. Kingfisher has also made the addition of a female mycologist, an American doctor, as well as various townspeople, to complete the cast. Though I have to admit Angus, the Scottish personal assistant of Lt. Easton, was a personal favorite.

Kingfisher always crafts her stories with creeping dread and from the beginning pages, she molds (pun not intended but in this case, highly appropriate) this inspired tale with care. The Usher property is blooming with nasty, foul-smelling mushrooms, the manor house is crumbling and filled with mildew and decay, and the Ushers themselves are pallid skeletal things. None of that is anything new. Oh, but the hares. If nothing else will give you the heebie-jeebies in this story, the hares will. You know that feeling you get while watching horror movies, where a person skitters around on all fours or jerkily ambulates—familiar but thoroughly alien? Kingfisher must dream of that feeling because she excels at writing the wrongness of things.

It's like Kingfisher took a look at Poe's narrative and decided to complete all of the gaps, mapping out the dark corners and watery lake depths. She scaffolded onto the original with a light touch, melding some gratifying humor and wit with the expected gothic conventions. However, if you were a fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic and Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, you'll be over the moon to know that this is also a fungal horror. Undeniably, Kingfisher gives us the answers to the questions that plagued us after finishing the original. Poe's version left the reader with so many interpretations and very little solid evidence. Kingfisher doesn't wait for the House of Usher to break atwain; She lights it on fire and watches it burn.

WHAT MOVES THE DEAD is a completely dark read. This retelling both pulled me in and freaked me out at the same time.

What: dark, gothic, alternate-history
Features: a fungal nightmare, a dark foreboding body of water, disease, mystery
Assets: a brief novel packing in rich details of an alternate history/world, thick atmosphere, creeping dread
Obstacles: readers may feel like they're lost in the same fog permeating the setting
Who it’s for: fans of dark fantasy, gothic fiction

8:30 at night and ugh, I don't wanna read anything or watch anything or play anything and it's (almost) too early for bed, so I start flipping through ARCs and oh yeah, I wanted to read this one! Two hours later, and I'm wonderfully creeped out. I definitely prefer this to her other horror novels.
Thank you very much to Tor and NetGalley for the ARC!

T. Kingfisher is officially my favorite author discovery of 2022! I love her writing style and the way she remakes and reshapes classic fairytales

4.5 stars. I read both this and it's inspiration (The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe) this year. I read this first, though I think my rating would've been the same either way. This is a short read with some seriously creepy vibes and the atmosphere is really what sells the story. I do wish that there would have been more exploration of the plot and that Kingfisher had taken things much further than the original novel, but this reimagining was still quite vibrant. There is definitely a gross out factor to the tale, so be forewarned. The representation is really well handled and I think the Gothic style comes through brilliantly. I'm just a big fan of T. Kingfisher all around.

This is a short quick read, and is a retelling of a classic Poe. It was creepy, and amazing, and I wanted more. Kingfisher is now on my radar

After I read this novella, I did a Google search of T. Kingfisher and learned many things about her. The first is that T. Kingfisher is a pen name. The second is that she has released over 40 books. The third is that I should have been reading her works much earlier. As it is, What Moves the Dead is the first of her books that I have read.

A riff on the The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, What Moves the Dead is the story of Alex Easton going to visit their childhood friend at the house of Usher after they receive a letter requesting help. Their friend, Madeline Usher, says that she is sick and dying and needs help, so Alex rushes there as soon as they can. What Alex finds there is a perfect gothic story, brother and sister holed up in a damned house, along with a doctor they do not trust. Everyone and everything falling apart. The horror and mystery that Alex finds there makes What Moves the Dead a fast paced, thin novella that is really satisfying.

Much of the success of this novella can be attributed to T. Kingfisher’s writing. In a short period of time, she develops the setting and the characters with such detail that it feels as if I read a 400 page novel. The writing in this novella is masterful, and I found myself rereading sentences because of how gorgeous they are. This is one of those novellas that I will probably reread simply because of the writing. There is so much depth to some of the scenes and writing that I can really feel the dampness and sickness that is seeping from the walls and the pages. I cannot recommend What Moves the Dead enough. I know now that I have to read some of T. Kingfisher’s other works.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first read by T Kingfisher, who I was very excited to try a book from. It was a lot shorter than I expected, but more than enough to get the story told well and concisely. I'm thinking I would have gotten even more out of the book if I had read the house of usher before reading this one, but I definitely took a lot from the story.

I found the story creepy, uncomfortable at times and extremely strange, which I absolutely loved! The whole book just gave me creepy vibes, everything about it was ominous.

Spine tingling and deeply eerie. In a different story, I’d love to learn more about the fictional country and it’s relationship with gender. Am now terrified of mushrooms

T. Kingfisher knows how to write a book. Just. Wow. I am several books into her work now and I am just amazed at the range that she can write. I went from a fantasy adventure romp in Nettle and Bone (one of my very favorites of the year and all-time as well), to a Fall of the House of Usher remix with death and dilapidated mansions and fungi galore.

Kingfisher skillfully crafts an atmospheric, creepy tale of Alex Easton, Madeline Usher, Roderick Usher, and an additional range of memorable cast of characters. I also really loved how Kingfisher seamlessly creates diversity in her nonbinary character of Eason, going even the extra mile by creating pronouns and titles for them, which also plays into the generally unique worldbuilding of this story. All around this is just the right amount of weird and it's extremely compelling.

Any sort of fan of Poe or gothic fiction should absolutely pick this up. It will devour you, very intentionally.

While this book itself is very much a typical gothic novella, it is anything but. Kingfisher has the ability to create an environment and atmosphere that totally immerses you from the moment you begin reading. Having only read one other work by this author that I absolutely enjoyed (The Twisted Ones) I had high hopes going into this title that were equally met. That's not to say that the cover art itself in all of its glory didn't help in adding to its draw. My library ended up purchasing this title and it has been consistently on the holds list since its arrival.

I never realized how much I love retellings until this year, and What Moves the Dead confirmed this love over and over again. Reading retellings always brings new light to certain aspects of the original story and, especially in the case of this one, increases the horror in unique ways.

Kingfisher captures the dank, gothic atmosphere so well I could practically smell it, and the addition of parasitic mushrooms as the culprit of Madeline’s “illness” made my skin crawl. Ecological horror and gothic fiction really work together, and I hope we’ll see more of it!

This is horror done the right way. The tone was set immediately and held up consistently until the very end of the story. There were multiple spine chilling moments, and more than a few chapters that genuinely spooked me! Who knew fungus could be so scary?! 🍄

I quickly reread The Fall of the House of Usher before diving into this one, and while the OG will always be special, I think I honestly preferred the retelling! This modern version of a beloved classic really killed it! 🔪 (All puns intended)

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for providing me with an e-copy of this novel to read and review!

What Moves the Dead is T. Kingfisher's modern gothic exploration and interpretation of Poe's House of Usher, set in a post war alternative history world with nonbinary and non human characters. It was well written and an interesting idea but felt a bit lacking to me, and was pretty slow overall. Definitely not my favorite of her works but I am glad to have read it regardless. The cover is best part of this one.

This was a really fun re-telling! T. Kingfisher manages to balance genuine scares with humor in a way that never fails to impress me, and always manages to put a contemporary spin on classic stories.

The first thing I heard about What Moves the Dead was that it's a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. That was all I needed to hear to be honest, and I wish I had read it as soon as I received it. It's a short book anyway, but I read it in less than a day because I could not put it down.

In What Moves the Dead, Alex Easton is a sworn soldier of Galacia. They receive a letter from their childhood friend Madeline Usher who thinks she may be dying. Naturally, Alex rushes to the crumbling manor Madeline and her brother Roderick call home to do what they can to help. When Alex makes their way to the Usher castle, though, they find a half-caved-in manor on the edge of a sickly lake called a tarn.

Upon seeing the Usher siblings, Alex realizes the house and grounds aren't the only things breaking down. Both of the Ushers seem deathly ill, and even the doctor has no idea what is really wrong with either of them. Thus begins Alex's journey into the slow disintegration of the house of Usher.

From the very first line, the story makes it clear this will not be a happy tale. Mushrooms and fungi are described by comparing them to viscera and open wounds. The local hares behave in strange and unnerving ways, such as sitting up and staring at people and drowning themselves in the tarn. The locals refuse to visit the manor, and no one goes close to the lake if they can help it. All of these descriptions lend themselves to create an atmosphere of dread throughout the story.

Similarly to the story it's inspired by, all the details in What Moves the Dead are important. Nothing is mentioned in an off-hand manner. Even the constant presence of mushrooms is important. Even descriptions of arm hair are important to the story! That being said, all these obvious details made it pretty easy to guess how it would end, and some readers may not enjoy how obvious it is. I personally thought it gave reading the story a vicarious thrill. I knew certain characters were doomed, and seeing those that cared about them confront all of the clues with denial added to the story's atmosphere.

Speaking of characters, they were all wonderful, but my favorites were Alex and Eugenia Potter, the British mycologist. Alex is the narrator of the story, and I loved their tangents into the history of Galacia and the language of Galacia. It really added some context and personality to the story as well as explaining why Alex might do certain things. I also really enjoyed having a non-binary character as the narrator. Alex even explained this through an aside about the Galacian language have six sets of pronouns that are used for people depending on age (children are called va or van until puberty) or occupation (all soldiers are known by ka or kan regardless of gender identity). It was interesting and added to the story.

As for Eugenia Potter, she is a wonder. She's a minor character, but she always pops up whenever the knowledge of mushrooms and other fungi is needed most. She is a tenacious British lady determined to break into the male dominated scientific world of the late 1800's. She's also not afraid to take action when needed, and her no-nonsense manner offered some nice grounding points during the more surreal parts of the story.

Overall, I loved this story. It was the perfect combination of creeping horror, dark humor, and suspense. I loved the characters and the atmosphere in equal measure, and the story managed to be believable in the end, which isn't easy to do considering some of what happens. I will also never look at hares the same way again, or mushrooms for that matter.

I gave What Moves the Dead five out of five stars. I have nothing bad to say about this book. The creeping horror of the hares and the atmosphere created by the crumbling manor house surrounded by the black, fetid tarn pitting man against nature made for the best setting for a horror story. The characters' personalities shone through, and the dark humor kept things from getting too grim. Anyone looking for a short, quick horror read should pick this book up, especially if you enjoy Gothic horror.