Talking Scared

Latest Episodes:

237 – Joe Abercrombie & The International Brotherhood of the Blade May 06, 2025

Show notes

Let’s get grim and dark with Lord Grimdark!

Perhaps the greatest benefit of having a book podcast like mine is the opportunity to speak to my very favourite authors. I’ve been reading Joe Abercrombie’s violent, world-weary dark fantasy for TWENTY years! And now he’s on the show.

Consider me excited.

His new book may be called The Devils, and it may contain werewolves, vampires, necromancers and oceans of blood – but it’s quite a cheery affair for Joe. I have never laughed so much in preparation for an interview.

We talk writing the most anti of antiheroes, gender-flipping the catholic church, and why you shouldn’t sleep with people who own swords.

It’s a lot of fun.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

A Game of Thrones (1996), by George R. R. Martin
Wizard of Earthsea (1968), by Usula K. Le Guin
LA Confidential (1990) by James Ellroy
Blood Meridian (1995), by Cormac McCarthy

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236 – Brian Keene & Living in the Splatter Apr 29, 2025

Show notes

Brian Keene has written so many damn books!

…and I had never read any of them.

This absolute horror faux-pas (and my embarrassment) is the reason that it’s taken so long to get Brian on the show. But I set a week aside and read as many Keene books as I could and here we are… on a leisurely stroll through Brian’s life and career,both of which he has devoted to stories of really nasty s*** happening to undeserving people.

We talk abouthis bleak coming-of-age novel, Ghoul, his story of a homicidal nightfrom hell, The Complex, and his sombre study of mortality and writing inthe 21st century, The End of the Road.

And between all that we cover hope and nihilism, we ask if horror could help shore up the failing centre, and Brian talks me through all the great writers I missed when I wasn’t paying enough attention to horror.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

The Rising (2003), by Brian Keene
Entombed (2011), by Brian Keene
Ghoul (2007), by Brian Keene
End of the Road (2020), by Brian Keene
The Cellar (1980), by Richard Laymon
The Beast House (1986), by Richard Laymon
The Island (1995), by Richard Laymon
A Writer’s Tale (1998), by Richard Laymon
The Girl Next Door (1989), by Jack Ketchum
Survivor (2002), by J.F. Gonzalez
A Choir of Ill Children (2007) by Tom Piccirilli
“Sticks” (1974), by Karl Edward Wagner
“West Of Matamoros, South of Hell” (2017), by Brian Hodge (in Best Horror of the Year, Volume 10, edited by Ellen Datlow)
The Day of the Door (2024), by Laurel Hightower
The Better To Eat You With (2024), by Wesley Southard

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235 – Nat Cassidy & Emotional Doomsday Prepping Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

I’ve been looking forward to releasing this one…

Nat Cassidy comes to Talk Scared about When the Wolf Comes Home, his new novel that I –and people like me – are already calling out as one of the Best Books of the Year™.

It’s a shaggy, undisciplined, sprinting beast of a book that obeys no rules. You may think it’s a werewolf novel, and you may be right... but also very wrong. It’s a book about transformations of many kinds, about fatherhood and the very nature of fear itself. But it’s also funny, scary and sad as hell.

You’ll love the damn thing, and this conversation.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Mary: An Awakening of Terror (2022), by Nat Cassidy

Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy

Play Nice (forthcoming, 2025), by Rachel Harrison

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Off Book #8 – Kyle McConaghy & Dead Mail Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

Back to the 80s this week for one of the most singular horror movies of the year – now streaming on Shudder.

Dead Mail is an ode to the era, but there are no neon fonts or leg warmers (or Olivia Newton Johns) here. Instead we’re in the drear of the decade, for a story about a synth-obsessed man who keeps his business partner captive in his flock-wallpapered bathroom. The poor victim’s only hope is the investigative ‘Dead Mail’ department of his local post office.

If that sounds mad… well, it is. And I’m joined by Kyle McConaghy, one half of the writing/directing duo behind the movie.

We talk about scripting the crazy, about the hands-on reality of low-budget filmmaking, replicating 80s aesthetics, and a big bucket full of rubber rats.

Enjoy!

Dead Mail is streaming on Shudder from Friday 18th April

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234 – Katherine Arden & The Devil’s Train Timetable Apr 15, 2025

Show notes

In the week that the world changed, we’re talking about the last time things got this crazy.

Katherine Arden is the author of The Warm Hands of Ghosts — a novel set in the trenches of the First World War and on the borderline between horror and fantasy. It’s a Faustian pact made in No-Man’s Land, where our memories are the price we pay for keeping ourselves alive.

In this episode we talk a lot about history, about inflection points and moments of no-return. We talk about how systems of power can seem so complex that they lead only to ruin – but we also talk devils and fairies and angels and brave, brave nurses with scarred hands.

It’s a joy of a conversation, about the most hideous time to be alive.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

The Bear and the Nightingale (2017), by Katherine Arden
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025), by Stephen Graham Jones
Wasteland: The Great War and the Origin of Modern Horror (2018), by W. Scott Pool
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), by Susanna Clarke
The Master and the Margarita (1940), by Mikhail Bulgakov
Lud in the Mist (1926), by Hope Mirrlees
Ghosts Have Warm Hands: A Memoir of the Great War (1968), by Will R. Bird
Between Two Fires (2012), by Christopher Buehlman
Ghost Eaters (2022), by Clay McLeod Chapman
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025), by Clay McLeod Chapman

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch

Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com

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233 – Tariq Ashkanani & Bloodstained Hands Across the Ocean Apr 08, 2025

Show notes

This week we go from Edinburgh, Scotland to Nashville, Tennessee, in the company of crime author Tariq Ashkanani.

Tariq’s The Midnight King is a tricky, quasi-metafictional murder mystery about cursed manuscripts, familial secrets and the most heinous murders. It’s also a love letter to the kind of occult-tinged American crime epics that both he and I grew up loving.

We talk about the challenge of writing about serial killing without exploitation, about the unstable boundary between crime and horror fiction, about the allure of Hannibal Lecter and the pressure of a good twist.

But mostly we just pay homage to the messy, bloodsoaked myth of America that inspired us so much over the years.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Welcome to Cooper (2021), by Tariq Ashkanani
Red Dragon (1981), by Thomas Harris
Galveston (2010), by Nic Pizzolatto
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019), by Hallie Rubenhold
The Devil All the Time (2011), by Donald Ray Pollock
Uzumaki (2000), by Junji Ito

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch

Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com

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232 – Punk Goes Horror, with William Sterling, Wendy Dalrymple & Brian McAauley Apr 01, 2025

Show notes

Time to throw ourselves around. We’re covering Punk Goes Horror.

The anthology of stories inspired by punk and alternative rock songs came out just a few weeks back. It brings together a mosh-pit full of authors, both new and established, to transmute their favourite songs into nasty little stories.

I invited the anthology editor, William Sterling, and two of his contributors, Wendy Dalrymple and Brian McCauley, to talk about punk, and horror and the affinity between the two.

We get into our favourite ever gig experiences, the creepy assumptions behind certain emo-songs, and why punk (and music generally) is such an important light in dark times.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk (2024), by Kathleen Hanna
Victorian Psycho (2025), by Virginia Feito
Blood on her Tongue (2025), by Johanna van Veen
Credenza (2025), by Wendy Dalrymple
Breathe in, Bleed Out (2025), by Brian McCauley
Poisoned Soup for the Macabre, Depraved and Insane: An Anthology of Nostalgic Terrors (2025), edited by Wendy Dalrymple and Grace R. Reynolds

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

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Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com

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Let Us Palaver #2 — The Drawing of the Three Debrief Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

The second Let Us Palaver minisode – in which Nat Cassidy dig into the things we couldn't say about The Drawing of the Three, and give MAJOR SPOILERS about whole Dark Tower series.

We're really start to wonder if Chris is punking us.

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The Dark Tower Deep Dive #2 – The Drawing of the Three Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

The Ka-tet picks up exactly where we left off: on the beaches of Midworld, with Roland Deschain. (If none of that makes any sense to you, go listen to episode one of the Dark Tower Deep Dive immediately)

Nat Cassidy, Chris Panatier and I gather for a long, philosophical, expletive-littered conversation about Book 2: The Drawing of the Three. We get further into the character of Roland and his quest, and spend some time with the gaggle of oddballs he meets along his scenic tour of the coast. The seafood is particularly tasty!

It’s good to be talking Tower again.

Enjoy.

Nnedi Okorafor's article on Odetta/Detta

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

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Come talk books on Bluesky @talkscaredpod.bsky.social on Instagram/Threads, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com

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231 – Stephen Graham Jones & Rewilding the Vampire Mar 18, 2025

Show notes

It’s always great when Stephen Graham Jones comes to Talk Scared with us – but for once we aren’t talking about slashers!

No, this time, we’re talking vampires! Or are we?

Stephen’s new novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, is his best yet. Or at least the one that I love the most. It’s an epic and brutal saga of American history and shame, told through three very distinctive voices, speaking across the centuries. There are monsters with fangs AND with flags.

We talk about Stephen’s relationship with so-called Indian stories…about his use and misuse of animals in fiction, and the white-knuckle, red-hot writing style that leads to some truly crazy things.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned: