2022 short horror novel. Alex Easton has been called to the ancestral
home of Roderick Usher, who served under him in the war. Roderick's
sister Madeline is very ill…
Well, yes, this absolutely is inspired by The Fall of the
House of Usher (without the diversion into mediaeval romance). But to
me this feels like that excellent type of horror that steps outside
genre boundaries. As in At the Mountains of Madness, there are
horrible things happening, but the protagonists are not horror
protagonists; they don't want just to survive dull-eyed and incurious,
they want to work out what's happening in order to survive better.
But after a long, long moment, he finally said, "Would you like to
come inside?"
"Yes," I said, aware that I was lying. I did not want to go into
that tired house dripping with fungi and architectural eyes. But
Madeline had summoned me and here I was.
There are other elements too. We're in a Ruritania (specifically
"Ruravia", while Easton is from neighbouring Gallacia). And their
national origins affect who these people are, how they have lived,
and the way they think. A side character is Eugenia Potter, an amateur
mycologist (because the Mycology Society won't admit women), and her
Britishness is important too.
"One of the fine, fierce old ladies of England. They'll climb
mountains and make tea on the summit if they need to. We'd have done
a damn sight better in the war if they'd sent them over instead of
the troops."
"Probably not a devil of the moors, then?"
"Well, I haven't met her yet. She might be."
Things happen. People die. But it makes sense, and our characters
try to deal with it as far as their mindsets can allow. With this and
The Hollow Places I find myself very sympathetic to Kingfisher's
approach to horror, which is much more about trying to learn about the
world than it is either about a monster that goes "rar" or about how
terrified someone is.