What Moves The Dead

Product Information

When Easton travels to Gallacia as a favor to Miss Potter, they find their home empty, the caretaker dead, and the grounds troubled by a strange, uncanny silence. What Moves the Dead is an exceptional novel that shows its strengths in the areas that both critical literary circles and the reading public value. Despite its relatively short length, I felt like I got to know and admire (or fear) everyone in the story.

What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher | Waterstones

By choosing to keep the majority of the dialogue in a relatively contemporary tone, Kingfisher is able to lend the tale a certain warmth and sense of humor. I respect Vernon’s choice to keep the plot as Poe wrote it, but feel she missed out on something truly noteworthy by not making this even more her own story. Fans of Kingfisher and those who enjoy snuggling up with a good horror will not be disappointed by this riveting read! While long-time readers of Poe might therefore run into difficulties with the liberties Kingfisher takes with the original, fans of contemporary body horror are likely to find the tale compelling, especially where it delves into the interpenetration of various human, plant, and supernatural bodies which the story relates. Further, seeing the perspective before and after Madeline’s ghastly transition is fertile creative ground, and I’m sad we didn’t walk there.The main character was incredible, I loved the acknowledgments section, the whole story was wild, I flew through it. By the end, I was nodding along and willing to launch a crusade against all weak, overbred flocks, prone to scours and fly-strike, crowding out the honest sheep of the world.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher - Goodreads Editions of What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher - Goodreads

Kingfisher captures so much of what I loved in Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic and Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation, but with a completely different tone (much funnier), a late-19th century gothic setting, and a warm cast of characters.First, Vernon aimed to turn a short story into a full-length novel without altering or expanding its core plot. Part of Kingfisher’s conceit is reframing the original characters in reference to the proud but hapless nation of Gallacia, the home country of Easton, whose only export beyond its soldiers is its intricate and expansive set of pronouns.