Avsnitt
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“The man in black fled across the desert, and the podcaster followed…”
Welcome to the start of what is sure to be an epic journey. Step by step, over more than a dozen episodes, Talking Scared will be following the beam all the way to the Dark Tower – that mad edifice at the heart of Stephen King’s opus. Maybe it’s the heart of every story ever told… time will tell.
Unlike Roland Deschain, I don’t go alone. I’m joined by author and fellow King-nut, Nat Cassidy (Mary, Nestlings, When the Wolf Comes Home) and absolute newbie, Chris Panatier (The Phlebotomist, The Redemption of Morgan Bright) and in this first ever episode we tussle with the tricky, dusty, thorny opening that is Book One: The Gunslinger.
What follows dives deep into the book, but is 100% spoiler free about anything beyond it. So if you’ve only read The Gunslinger, you’re good to go.
I hope you enjoy our wanderings. I hope you tinct. I hope you darkle.
Other books mentioned:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2000), by Stephen King
It (1986), by Stephen King
The Jerusalem Man (1988), by David Gemmell
The Book of the New Sun (series, 1980-1987), by Gene Wolfe
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The latest Off Book episode takes you out to the American desert and leaves you there, cold, alone and confused.
We’re speaking with Dutch Marich, the surprisingly lovely mind behind the most terrifying found footage I’ve seen in years – The Horror in the High Desert series.
These films are full of a particular kind of fear. Never obscure, but always hidden – leaving you as fascinated as you are scared. It’s the kind of weird, collective storytelling that used to set internet forums alight!
In this 100% spoiler-free conversation, Dutch and I talk about withholding answers, we discuss the scary side of Nevada and his fascination with unexplained disappearances. And he even tell us the tenuous connection between his movies and Stephen King’s Desperation.
Plus, if you’re a fan of these movies, you’ll find out a little info on what’s coming in the next instalment.
Enjoy!
Sign Dutch's petition
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Tyranny is the key this week on Talking Scared this week. How fitting.
Susan Barker’s Old Soul is a globe-trotting, decade-spanning supernatural tour of autocracies, from behind the Iron Curtain to contemporary China. If that isn’t frightening enough, it also features an ageless woman who curses anyone she meets, a grand cosmic entity, and the exhilaration and terror of deep time.
Heady stuff, and Susan and I talk about all of it – and just why she likes to write about as many times and places in each book as she can.
Enjoy.
Incarnations (2014) by Susan Barker
Sayonara Bar (2005), by Susan Barker
Ghostwritten (1999), by David Mitchell
Number9Dream (2001), by David Mitchell
Slade House (2015), by David Mitchell
House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
Under the Skin (2000), by Michelle Faber
Audition (1997), by Ryū Murakami
The Denial of Death (1973), by Ernest Becker
The Three Body Problem (2006), by Cixin Liu
You Like it Darker (2024), by Stephen King
Starve Acre (2019), by Andrew Michael Hurley
Barrowbeck (2024), by Andrew Michael Hurley
The Ritual (2011), by Adam Neville
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It’s a collegial week on Talking Scared. ‘Cos I’m talking dark, occult academia with someone very local to me.
Kate van der Borgh’s debut, And He Shall Appear is basically a sinister version of my own life. It’s about a young working class lad, like me, who goes to a prestigious university, like me… but there ours paths diverge, as he meets a fellow student who perhaps has diabolical powers.
It’s a twisted, obscure, psychological study of unreliable memory, inescapable guilt, and the haunting of not-knowing oneself. Kate and I talk about all of that, as well as the class divide, northern accents, the terror of infinity, favourite ghosts stories, and memories of underrage drinking in the same bars.
The book is great. I’m delighted to help celebrate it.
Enjoy.
The Sense of an Ending (2011), by Julian Barnes
The Little Stranger (2009), by Sarah Waters
The Pallbearer’s Club (2022), by Paul Tremblay
We Were Villains (2017), by M. L. Rio
The Secret History (1992), by Donna Tartt
“All Souls,” in The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (1973), by Edith Wharton
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Welcome back and Happy New Year. 2025 looms ahead. Frightening. Uncertain. Crazy!!
Our first guest of the year has written the book that best captures this mad future we’re living in. Clay McLeod Chapman returns to Talking Scared, to talk about Wake Up And Open Your Eyes – his new novel of mass demonic possession, transmitted through poisonous media, and the destruction of families and communities.
It’s… disturbing.
It’s also gross as hell. Deliciously so. And we talk about that urge for the the ick! As well as his motivations in writing this book, his anxiety over releasing it, and the sadness that underlies our political echo chambers.
It’s a hell of a way to kick off a wild, weird year.
What Kind of Mother (2023), by Clay McLeod Chapman
Ghost Eaters (2022), by Clay McLeod Chapman
The Deluge (2022), by Stephen Markley
Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran
The Stand (1990), by Stephen King
Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror Stories (2022), ed by, Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias
American Rapture (2024), by CJ Leede
Feast While You Can (2024), by by Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta
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How else to end 2024 than with an entirely subjective list of the best things I’ve read over the year?
How many of you will guess the number one spot? I bet none of you will guess the number two?
Let me know your thoughts – what you loved, and what you think I missed
Enjoy!
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It’s that time of year again. When I celebrate the winter solstice by getting some horror authors to come and talk in deep, emotional detail about a scary book that we like.
This time the Christmas Special Deep Dive kicks the tires and looks under the hood of Stephen King’s most underrated novel: From a Buick 8. My friends on this weird-ass-road trip are Ally Malinenko and Nat Cassidy. I asked them to do it for a coupla reasons. 1) They are lovely 2) hey really get King, and 3) they can speak to this book’s focus on grief and loss.
And oh boy do we talk grief, loss, afterlives and everything else. Turns out it’s not just a book about a car after all.
Don’t worry though, Ally is charming, Nat is snarky and together we’ll make you laugh.
And Christmas is supposed to be tinged with melancholy isn’t it…
Enjoy!
Other Books Mentioned
Matterhorn (2009), by Karl Marlantes
Hearts in Atlantis (1999), by Stephen King
The Colorado Kid (2005), by Stephen King
“The Night Flyer” and “Popsy,” in Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993), by Stephen King
Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
This Appearing House (2022), by Ally Malinenko
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… and we’re back! Just in time for this seasonal tradition. The State of the Horror Nation 2024 – our expert-led review of the best that the year had to offer in terms of horror writing and pen-and-ink nightmares.
I’m joined, as ever by my stalwart co-host for this gig, Emily Hughes, author of Horror For Weenies (go check her mammoth 2025 anticipated horror book list at ReadJumpScares.com)
Our special correspondents are Anna Dupre, reviewer and interviewer at Anna Rose Reads, and Stephani Gagnon of the landmark, can’t-be-beaten horror podcast, Books In the Freezer
They pick their books of 2024, and we talk about the things that have defined the year, whilst also looking forward to what’s next.
Enjoy!
Anna's Essay on IT
https://filmfreakcentral.net/2024/10/terrifier-3-2024/
Books Picked
The Eyes Are the Best Part (2024), by Monika Kim
Cuckoo (2024), by Gretchen Felker-Martin
American Rapture (2024), by C.J. Leede
Woodworm (2024), by Layla MartinezHorror Movie (2024) by Paul Tremblay
Night’s Edge (2024), by Liz Kerin
So Thirsty (2024), by Rachel Harrison
Model Home (2024), by Rivers Solomon
I Was a Teenage Slasher (2024), by Stephen Graham Jones
Books Anticipated
Victorian Psycho (2025), by Virginia Feito
The Poorly Made (2025), by Sam Rebelein
The Unworthy (2025), by Augustina Bazterrica
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025), by Stephen Graham Jones
Bat Eater (2025), by Kylie Lee Baker
Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread (2025), by Leila Taylor
The Haunting of Room 904 (2025), by Erika T. Wurth
8114 (2025),by Joshua Hull
When the Wolf Comes Home (2025), by Nat Cassidy
Senseless (2025), by Ronald Malfi
King Sorrow (2025), by Joe Hill
And He Shall Appear (2025), by Kate van der Borgh
Nowhere Burning (2025), by Catriona Ward
Girl in the Creek (2025), by Wendy Wagner
The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre (2025), by Philip Fracassi
The End of the World As We Know It: Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand (2025), edited by Brian Keene and Christopher Golden
Old Soul (2025), by Susan Barker
rekt (2025), by Alex Gonzalez
Wake Up and Open Your Eyes (2025), by Clay McLeod Chapman
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This is the last way-back episode before the show returns with a scream next week.
But this is an episode worth remembering – my first ever conversation with Catriona Ward, about her game-changing The Last House on Needless Street too!
This was a big ask for a novice interviewer. How the hell do you talk about a book that hinges on such a huge secret. Somehow we managed to walk that tightrope, whilst also talking about cats (feline) serial killers, and the haunted bedroom of Cat’s (author) girlhood.
It’s fun to retread this grim path.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
Rawblood (2015), by Catriona Ward
Little Eve (2018), by Catriona Ward
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (2019), by Hallie Rubenhold
Spider (1990), by Patrick McGrath
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A chance to revisit one of my favourite books and favourite ever conversations this week.
Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl came out in early 2021, and for once I was ahead of the curve! Right from the start, I adored this novel of workplace micro-aggression and satirical horror in the publishing industry – and I’m glad to see the world has since agreed.
It’s a high-concept thriller that blends the paranoia of Rosemary’s Baby with the bite of Get Out – and for once it’s a story that deserves those comparisons. Zakiya talks about her own background in publishing and how it informed this nightmare. We talk about discussing racism in fiction, and (in a slightly meta way) we discuss how interviews LIKE THIS ONE may actually perpetuate a degree of othering. In short, I tie myself in white millennial knots, but Zakiya is wonderfully generous.
God I love this book. Some may say it’s not horror. I’d disagree so much that I stuck it on my list of best horror novels ever. Let’s see what you think.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
All Her Little Secrets (2021), by Wanda M. Morris
Rosemary’s Baby (1967), by Ira Levin
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I’m feeling Gothic this week. Must be the weather. In lieu of a new episode, I searched the vault and found this cracker from January 2021, in which Laura Purcell — doyenne of the contemporary British Gothic — talked me through her Victorian spookshow of mesmerism and haunted silhouettes, The Shape of Darkness. We also get into the social nightmare of Victorian England – when life was even more gothic than it is now, believe it or not! Enjoy! Other books mentioned:
The Residence (2020), by Andrew Pyper
The Haunting of Alma Fielding (2020), by Andrew Pyper
Shadowland, or Light From the Other Side (1897), by Elizabeth d’Esperance
“The Blue Lenses,” in The Breaking Point (1959), by Daphne du Maurier
“The Mezzotint”, “A View From A Hill” and “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad”, found in The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James
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This From the Vault episode is not quite so dusty. Gemma and I recorded this in 2022, but it’s more pertinent than ever. One because Gemma’s great uncanny novella The Folly is being reissued this week, and two, because the world is a mad place right now, and we all need to take care of our minds.
This conversation is all about that. An epic conversation about the issue of mental health as creators and consumers of dark stories. We dig DEEP into our own neuroses, and talk about how great horror comes with great responsibility.
Yes, there is difficult, challenging stuff to churn through — but there’s also chat about the Uncanny Valley, Men in Black, Creepypasta and Black Mirror. And the ethics of vandalising racist statues.
Enjoy!
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Still on a break – still releasing episodes “From the Vault.”
But this week’s was carefully chosen. In a time of darkness and doom-laden days, laughter is the best thing I can lace your horror with. And thankfully T. Kingfisher exists in the world.
The funniest horror writer I know. We spoke WAAAAY back in October 2020, in episode 9, when The Hollow Places had just come out.
Yes Ursula and I talk about that book, and The Twisted Ones (2019) and how they twist Weird classics into fascinating new shapes. But we also cover building your own Golem, the homicidal value of pig farmers, and the anxiety of being a frog biologist.
I dunno guys… just liste! Hope it makes you smile.
Enjoy!
Other books mentioned:
“The White People” in The House of Souls (1906), by Arthur Machen
“The Willows”, in The Listener and Other Stories (2007), by Algernon Blackwood
It Will Just Be Us (2002), by Jo Kaplan
From a Buick Eight (2002), by Stephen King
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
Firefly Rain (2008), by Richard Dansky
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I’m on a break – but couldn’t resist releasing something.
Especially on today of all days, when lovers of democracy require audio sustenance whilst they wait in line to preserve America.
For the first From the Vault episode, I’ve gone back to December of 2020, for an interview with Michael Marshall Smith. We talk about his 30 years of writing horror, fantasy, science fiction and assorted dark imaginings – captured in his career-spanning Best Of collection.
Michael gives us all the good stuff about where ideas came from, why he writes the way he does, and all those details that literary voyeurs like us, want to know.
It’s also a trip back into the weirdness of the pandemic, and the dying days of the Trump presidency. Have your trauma shields up just in case.
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Halloween has finally arrived. I’m marking it in grim, macabre style.
For this Off Book Samhain Special, I’m joined by Kaelyn Moore, host and creator of Heart Starts Pounding – a podcast for the darkly curious, which offers up a new true-story of horror, hauntings and mystery every week.
Kaelyn is a treasure trove of haunted anecdote and freaky facts. We only touch the tip of her knowledge in this conversation, but still manage to cover the grimmest deaths at Disneyland, a South American Nazi cult, the most cursed book in history and Kaelyn’s own family history with an early American serial killer.
All that, plus a lot of recommendations for movies and the gruesome true-crime reading.
Stick around for the afterword, and plenty of updates on the future of Talking Scared,
Enjoy! Happy Halloween.
Books mentioned:
The Man From the Train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery (2017), by Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine (2017), by Lindsey Fitzharris
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (2018), by Michelle McNamara
The Devil’s Rooming House: the True Story of America’s Deadliest Female Serial Killer (2011), by M. William Phelps
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Things are heating up as we approach Halloween.
I’m joined by a good friend of Talking Scared – Rachel Harrison – to talk about the hot kind of immortality
Her new novel, So Thirsty, does much more than that though. It weighs the weaponization of beauty culture, it asks how women can navigate a world in which youth seems to be everything, and it illustrates the sheer social awkwardness of immortality.
Plus – it prompts a frank reckoning with just how badly I would cope in an orgy.
This is a fun episode, a deep episode, the perfect kind of bookish sign off for a few weeks whilst I take a break. And maybe a good hour of respite from the manic news cycle.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
The Return (2020), by Rachel Harrison
Cackle (2021), by Rachel Harrison
Such Sharp Teeth (2022), by Rachel Harrison
Black Sheep (2023), by Rachel Harrison
Nestlings (2023), by Nat Cassidy
Reluctant Immortals (2022), by Gwendolyne Kiste
The Militia House (2023), by John Milas
The Unsuitable (2020), by Molly Pohlig
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As we gear up for Halloween, we get all gussied up in Gothic.
Del Sandeen joins me to talk about the curses, colorism, and all the many influences in her Southern Gothic debut This Cursed House. It’s a novel that twists the sub-genre’s typical reliance on race, for a more subtle, pernicious form of prejudice.
But it’s also chock full of all the haunted house–cursed family–secret rooms–and weird incest that you could want from a truly Gothic novel. It’s a damn good time, as is this conversation.
We talk about New Orleans hauntings, the inspiration of Del’s grandmother, forgiveness as a theme, and the relative ickiness of incest.
Consider this your starting gun for spooky season.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
Voodoo Dreams (1993), by Jewel Parker Rhodes
The Good House (2003), by Tananarive Due
Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
The Vanishing Half (2020), by Brit Bennett
Sing, Unburied Sing (2017) , by Jesymn Ward
When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by LaTanya McQueen
“A Rose For Emily,” (1930), by William Faulkner
“Jordan’s End,” in The Shadowy Third (1923), by Ellen Glasgow
The Elementals (1981), by Michael McDowell
The Conjure Woman (1899), by Charles W. Chesnutt
The House Behind the Cedars (1900), by Charles W. Chesnutt
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Things get disinhibited on Talking Scared this week, when CJ Leede joins us for a conversation about her new novel, American Rapture.
The novel plunges middle America into a torrid apocalypse, as a sexual plague spreads across the nation, creating “lust hell on earth.” In this framework, C.J crafts a story of sexual awakening, sacrifice, found family, hypocrisy and cruelty. It’s a book that is both extreme and comforting in equal measure.
We talk about that crazy balancing act, about the threat of fundamentalist thought, the terror of demons, the delights of Americana, and the cathartic power of killing your characters.
Oh…and gear up for some very forthright opinions on religion.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
Maeve Fly (2023), by C.J. Leede
American Gods (2001), by Neil Gaiman
Bury Your Gays (2024), by Chuck Tingle
Camp Damascus (2023), by Chuck Tingle
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Hold hands, we need to stick together.
This week’s episode plunges us into the impossible and endless dark, with Sofia Ajram and her experimental, existential headf*ck of a debut novella, Coup de Grâce. It’s the tale of a man who gets lost in an endless subway station – and the monsters inside (and inside himself)
We talk about everything from the mythical history of mazes, to legends of the early internet, the mystery of Elisa Lam and what Sonic the Hedgehog has to tell us about the readers role in a story. Plus, a fair bit of chat about mental health, depression and suicidal ideation.
That makes it sound a lot less fun than it is, but only fair to warn you.
This is an episode for the adventurous and terminally online.
Enjoy.
Other books mentioned:
I Am the River (2018), by T.E. Grau
Water Statues (1980), by Fleur Jaeggy
Misery (1987), by Stephen King
House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski
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I started Off Book so that I could speak to some of the brightest dark stars in the wider universe of horror.
This week that plan comes to absolute fruition – ‘cos Kate Siegel is Talking Scared!
Yes, Kate Siegel, scream-queen of our generation, horror maven, acting superstar and now director of extraterrestrial found-footage nightmare (!!) ”Stowaway.” (a segment from the new V/H/S Beyond)
Kate talks to me about the steep learning curve of making that short, the camera techniques she uses to disorientate, bewilder and horrify. She talks about her approach to finding character, especially in her collaborations with her husband, Mike Flanagan – and she talks about the horror stories she loves most in the world.
She also calls me out very early on. How the hell did I recover??
Enjoy!
V/H/S Beyond is streaming now on Shudder
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