What Moves the Dead - A Love Letter to Edgar Allan Poe (and Mushrooms)!
I received this book in my August 2022 Night Worms package. I only recently read somewhere that this was a retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, and that only made me more interested in how T. Kingfisher would turn it into a full-length story.
Wow! It was really cool. And the title and cover art are absolutely perfect for the story. I loved that the main character was non-binary and that T. Kingfisher came up with pronouns outside of our own that forced me to take the time and learn them for the story. Having to reframe my mind for new pronouns and re-apply my knowledge every time they were used reminded me of learning a new language, and I find that type of learning to be a fun exercise for my brain and spirit. I also really liked that in the original the main character was unnamed, but in this one, they are named, but not gendered.
The imagery was wicked and I found myself looking up pictures of mushrooms between readings. The creeping of the gathered knowledge that culminates at the end electrifies the hairs on your arms (or perhaps I should say, the hyphae) and it is just an overall wonderful experience in horror and dread.
I highly recommend this book. It's a quick read, a love letter to the original by Edgar Allan Poe, and (for me) a doorway into the freaky world of mycology.
