Review of What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead (Tor Nightfire, 2022) is, at its core, a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This novella takes the classic tale and puts a new spin on it, lending something of an explanation to the original while taking it in an amazingly cool direction!
Rather than Poe’s unnamed narrator, Kingfisher presents the reader with Alex, a sworn soldier from Gallacia, who is the childhood friend of Madeline Usher and who served with Roderick Usher in a past war. There’s also an American doctor, a fascinating woman mycologist, and Alex’s batman added to the mix, each of whom are important to the revised plot. What follows is a story just as creepy as Poe’s (if not, perhaps, a bit creepier), told in beautiful language and absolutely made all the better for the narrator’s occasional bits of snark.
If you’re a Poe fan, you will quite likely enjoy Kingfisher’s take on this classic story. And if you’ve never read “The Fall of the House of Usher,” I recommend reading What Moves the Dead first!
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