What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Mar. 1st, 2026 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lightreadsWhat Moves the Dead
3/5. Historical fantasy horror novella about a nonbinary former soldier going to the literally moldering home of old friends, and getting caught up in a whole fungus horror situation. (This is the Fall of the House of Usher one, if unclear).
We all know I am somewhat dead inside, so perhaps it is not surprising that I found this only mildly creepy, after having been told it is absolutely terrifying. Take that as you will. I enjoyed this, but it’s not really my sort of thing and I feel no need to carry on with the series. I do wonder whose decision it was to use “they” on the jacket copy re our protagonist rather than the textual neopronoun used in the book. I say ‘hmm’ about that. The background to the whole pronoun situation, and the historical context in this fictional tiny European country, is kind of great, though.
Content notes: Fungus horror, dead bodies moving horror, body horror, animals being creepy.
3/5. Historical fantasy horror novella about a nonbinary former soldier going to the literally moldering home of old friends, and getting caught up in a whole fungus horror situation. (This is the Fall of the House of Usher one, if unclear).
We all know I am somewhat dead inside, so perhaps it is not surprising that I found this only mildly creepy, after having been told it is absolutely terrifying. Take that as you will. I enjoyed this, but it’s not really my sort of thing and I feel no need to carry on with the series. I do wonder whose decision it was to use “they” on the jacket copy re our protagonist rather than the textual neopronoun used in the book. I say ‘hmm’ about that. The background to the whole pronoun situation, and the historical context in this fictional tiny European country, is kind of great, though.
Content notes: Fungus horror, dead bodies moving horror, body horror, animals being creepy.
no subject
Date: 2026-03-03 07:20 pm (UTC)I have a mad creeping horror/fascination of parasitic fungus zombie stories and I made it all the way through this and still read the sequel, so it can't be that scary. (not my thing either, though I liked the light worldbuilding.)
I have a photo series from a few summers ago of a tomato hornworm which I left on the plant as it spent the whole summer as a healthy looking zombie & parisitic wasp nursery, and it's both one of the coolest things I've ever had in the garden and absolutely gorge-rising nausea-inducing nightmare fuel. Both, and!
no subject
Date: 2026-03-03 08:20 pm (UTC)Who among us is not both, and, when you come down to it.