B&N: Exactly. But with you and your version. So you’ve gifted us with quite a few or personalities and I’m gonna say, I just gotta say, well, Eugenia Potter is my personal favorite. Right now I want to chat about Alex Easton who is our sort of our non binary narrator and what what I thought was just so fascinating uses their home country of Gallacia? This book was sublime. Its a creeping, lovely read that hits you during and after you think you’re finished with the story. The ONLY thing I would have liked different in it would be a glimpse into the infected mind of Madeline. Diary entries would have been perfect – her account of those early days with this fungal fiend taking her over. I thought about this far too long after reading, I won’t lie. Many of us have already heard – or heard of – Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher , but this gothic post-war retelling is uniquely Kingfisher's. B&N: But, I feel like that’s something I very much enjoy in your writing is that it almost makes the horror more. So, you know, you get that laugh, or almost like eases you up a little bit. And then it’s like, The story is about Alex, a soldier who received a letter from their childhood friend telling if the friend’s illness and impending death. From there Alex is immediately concerned and travels to the dilapidated mansion to find her friend and see if they can be of any help.

What Moves the Dead - Macmillan What Moves the Dead - Macmillan

A gripping and atmospheric reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” from Hugo, Locus, & Nebula award-winning author T. Kingfisher And yet the story is so very scary. It will make you take bleach to that little patch of mold in the corner of the bathroom sooner rather than later. After all, that fungus is creeping, creeping your direction. But if you’re looking for a book that will give you the creepy crawlies, then this weird retelling of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher is a fascinating one. The aesthetics are off the charts when it comes to decay and gloom and the philosophical asides are as poignant as they come. I took my leave of Miss Potter, pausing to compliment her painting. She turned the compliment aside with a practiced air. “I’m well enough. You should see my niece Beatrix. Twice the talent, and an artist’s eye.” Without spoiling anything for anyone, I will say that I will forever be scared of mushrooms after reading this one. I am a huge fan of the T Kingfisher’s prior novels The Hollow Places and The Twisted One's but What Moves The Dead solidified my admiration for the author's extraordinary writing.There are two elements to playing a good cover song. The first is that the band must remember what made the song great in the first place: don’t rewrite the whole song, don’t forget your roots, don’t venture too far from the original. The second (somewhat contradictory) element is that the musicians need to add something new—if only something subtle, a change of key or of instrumentation. A good cover (and there is a huge amount of ground between a clever reinterpretation of a classic and a rip-off) allows the listeners to hear the song anew, bringing to light dimensions of the material which were less developed the first time around. B&N: I think it’s just that curiosity. I mean, kids are creepy, and I say this lovingly. But I can’t tell you how many times my son has come to me, and he’ll be five, and just the things he says. And you don’t want to curb that curiosity and that imagination. You try your best to answer their questions, explore that McCobb side of them. And again, just curious. But it’s just so funny, because I feel like you know, Maurice Sendak has said similar things about his writing and just, you know, you put me in children’s boxes, but I write what I write and, you know, and children, I don’t think we need to be so precious that it was…

What Moves The Dead (Literature) - TV Tropes What Moves The Dead (Literature) - TV Tropes

TK: Well, the thing is that in when you’re writing a children’s book, first of all, it shares much relation with horror, because it has to be usually very immediate and very visceral and gripping. Because otherwise the kids are gonna get bored. And your window of opportunity to grab the reader is something I mean, you have longer with horror, you can do the slow creeping dread better, but you have to grab the reader, you know, metaphorically by the throat. I do not condone grabbing children by the throat. Don’t do that. Or, let’s just not go around grabbing anyone. But also, when you’re a children’s book author, or okay, maybe this isn’t true for everyone, but certainly for me, there are points here, like kids would love this. And the editor is like, they might but their parents won’t and they buy the book. Or no, that is too scary or no, that is too creepy, or no, we are not allowed to teach the children that arson is a solution to their problems, which may be why several of my horror novels have ended with burning down the haunted house. And the problem is that every time you are, or at least every time I am told that you cannot do this thing in a book, it goes into this place in your chest and becomes compressed down tighter and tighter until it is like diamond. And finally you’re like, oh, no, I’m gonna write something and I’m gonna put everything in that they would not allow me to put in and just, you know, go completely hog wild. Many children’s book authors I know have a sort of mental file of the things they could not get away with. And someday, they are going to put that in the book.T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead, a fresh and frightening retelling of Edgar Allan Poe What moves the dead. Hair-Raising Hare: The hares around the tarn are...weird. The village is full of stories about how they're shapeshifted witches or possessed by the devil, and given how they all have a zombie-esque shuffle and tend to just stare at people, it's not hard to see why. It gets worse when Alex shoots one for Denton to study, and the hare, with half its head blown off, gets up and goes on with its business like nothing happened. When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that ka childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, ka races to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

Book Review: ‘What Moves the Dead’ is an Eerie, Scientific

A grotesque romp! It takes up residence beneath your skin and refuses to leave."—Caitlin Starling, USA Today bestselling author of The Death of Jane Lawrence B&N: That’s gonna move me into my most recent favorite. Not necessarily a fairy tale. But, What Moves the Dead, which is sort of this gripping atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. So then, going from fairy tales. Now we’ve got Gothic classics, what brought you to this, like what brought you to the Gothics? This is the type of retelling that does not go way too much of the original one, but there's beauty in that, in changing just a bit in certain places to create something new. I really loved the take the author chose for this story, and yes it certainly causes both awe and horror. TK: And Madeleine is barely a character in the original Usher. She’s a name and a monster more or less. Yeah.An Ode to the Horniest Sitcom Parents, the Belchers and the Wilkersons By Clare Martin April 11, 2023 | 10:40am There was definite inspiration from Poe and love how the author was able to really expand to create this eerie tale. The general premise of What Moves the Dead is that Easton, the main character has been summoned by their friend Madeline Usher to the Usher ancestral home. When they arrive, Easton finds their friend and their friend's brother apparently deathly ill. However, other strange things are occurring as well. Both Ushers are behaving strangely, there are bizarre and exotic fungus everywhere and...well...there's some really weird hares. Over the course of the novella, these elements blend together to result in climax that is just as riveting as both of the aforementioned earlier books from Kingfisher and might even surpass them in terms of quality. Though Kingfisher started penning this before Silvia Moreno-Garcia's fantastic novel Mexican Gothic was released, the two share certain similarities: a decrepit manor, a wasting illness, an mushrooms not acting like they should. However, Kingfisher sets her novel apart, reimagining Edgar Allen Poe's spine-chilling short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." through the eyes of a nonbinary soldier from a fictional european country. Easton is a brilliant protagonist, as is their society's concept of gender and multiple sets of pronouns. This novella is a linguistic and cultural exploration as much as it is a gothic horror, with the nightmarish circumstances occurring at the manor offset by Easton's wry, humorous narration and references to their own personal history and identity. Plus, a cameo by Beatrix Potter's fictional aunt! Driven to Suicide: Madeline's maid killed herself by jumping from the roof. She was infected by the Tarn and enlisted as a host for Madeline to teach it, but found the whole thing too horrible to deal with.

What Moves the Dead Quotes by T. Kingfisher - Goodreads What Moves the Dead Quotes by T. Kingfisher - Goodreads

A chilling story that builds and twists and expands and still manages to end with all its threads drawn together. But it was interesting seeing a non-binary person as our narrator and how they fit into the time period. The pronouns they used were both gender neutral and indicative of their career as a sworn soldier. It’s always good to see some diversity and glimpses of a more accepting world. But again, I found myself disappointed whenever the novella wasn’t focusing on the mystery and horror of the Usher House. Creepy, claustrophobic, and completely entertaining, What Moves the Dead left me delightfully repulsed. I adored this book!”—Erin A. Craig, New York Times bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows T. Kingfisher, I dare say, ELEVATED the classic story to something far more intriguing, beautiful, and sinister. The descriptions were so utterly gothic I found myself putting the book down just to close my eyes and picture them fully while languishing on the couch (all I was missing was a long, ephemeral gown and a choker on my pale throat. Perhaps a spilled crystal goblet of wine and piano music just slightly out of tune.) The characters had so much more depth and realism than Poe’s waifs (no offense, Ed). And the decay? Well, let me take a moment to get there…Aided by a visiting American doctor and a local mycologist, Easton embarks on a quest to figure out just what’s wrong with his friend—and how the strangely glowing lake at the bottom of the property fits into everything. As ??an audience stand-in, Easton is an intriguing narrator, with a bitingly dry wit and a soldier’s refusal to believe in anything other than what they can see directly in front of them. Along the way, we’re treated to interesting explanations of their home country and how its society created the “sworn soldiers” who use their own set of specific pronouns (a fact which comes into play toward the novella’s conclusion), as well as repeated encounters with an increasing number of deeply creepy hares, who don’t exactly behave the way that animals in the real world are supposed to. (Apologies to everyone who loves rabbits, between this and Melissa Albert’s Our Crooked Hearts it’s been a rough summer for y’all.) The mushroom’s gills were the deep-red color of severed muscle, the almost-violet shade that contrasts so dreadfully with the pale pink of viscera. I had seen it any number of times in dead deer and dying soldiers, but it startled me to see it here.