Skip to content
Sign in
Artwork for Talking Scared
ArtsBooksSociety & Culture

Talking Scared

Neil McRobert

Conversations with the biggest names in horror fiction. A podcast for horror readers who want to know where their favourite stories came from . . . and what frightens the people who wrote them.

Play
Open in
  • 35 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 1 hr 20 min
  • English

Episodes 35

NewestOldestLongest
All20Unplayed20In progress0Played0
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • Yesterday · 34 min

    Let Us Palaver #11 – Hearts in Atlantis Debrief

    Following the debate and disagreements of the main deep dive into Hearts in Atlantis, Nat stuck around to discuss some more spoiler-laden details. We talk about the wider impact of the Low Men, and how this book is starting to hint at a major secret that Chris can’t yet know. We also make plans for how to bring this project home – and spend a fair bit of time just calling Chris names! Enjoy. But for your father’s sake Do Not Listen if you haven’t read the entire Dark Tower saga!! 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • Tuesday · 2 hr 48 min

    The Dark Tower Deep Dive #11 – Hearts in Atlantis

    Deep dives don’t go any deeper than lost Atlantis! In this latest station of the Dark Tower readalong, we head back to the 1960s for Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis – a book closer to my heart than almost anything King has ever written. As such, this gets a little contentious and arguments ensue. I will not back down!! We talk about how this capsule of the USA’s most turbulent decade links directly to the Dark Tower. We spot hints of Randall Flagg. We talk peace and love, cynicism and hope, and we celebrate one of King’s greatest ever pieces of character work. Chris meets Low Men for the first time (or is it!?) and Nat gives us his take on the anti-boomer despair at the fulcrum of this novel. It’s a lot. Hence the 2.45 running time. Hope you enjoy it. Koko (1988), by Peter Straub First Blood (1972), by David Morrell From a Buick 8 (2002), by Stephen King Matterhorn (2009), by Karl Marlantes The Sorrow of War (1987), by Bảo Ninh Support Talking Scared on Patreon (say thankya!) 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • October 27 · 52 min

    301 – Jane Schoenbrun & Trapped by the Goonies?

    You may know Jane Schoenbrun as the genius behind I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasm, but I’m telling you that you HAVE to check out their debut novel. Public Access Afterworld is an epic of the inbetween. It’s about a mysterious TV signal that reveals ruptures in reality, and how all of existence is so much stranger than we know. It’s an extension of Jane’s creative obsessions and their work to date, but also entirely it’s own insane thing. Jane and I talk about the big themes. Media and reality, identity and transformation, horror and love. We give no spoilers, we just invite you in. Come join us between the static and the signal. Enjoy – and thanks for listening. Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • October 20 · 1 hr 18 min

    300 – Dorian Ravenscroft & Finding Love in a Hopeless Place

    The 300th author interview is here. And I’m delighted it’s with a debut author, about a truly wonderful book. Dorian Ravenscroft’s The White North Has Thy Bones is a supreme slice of Polar Gothic and Queer Horror alike. It’s the story of a disastrous 1860 expedition to the Arctic, and the competing stories of brutality and survival told by the few who make it home. Despite all the bloodshed and … strange meat… it’s also, somehow, a moving love story. We talk about all of those elements, as well as the weirder parts of Arctic naval history and just why the great frozen north is such a good backdrop for Queer stories. And I give my advice for how to survive being starvation on the ice. Enjoy – and thanks for listening. The Terror (2007), by Dan Simmons The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (2025), by David Grann Where the Dead Wait (2023), by Ally Wilkes Coffin Moon (2025), by Keith Rosson An Immaculate Deception (2026) by Isabela Livino Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • October 16 · 55 min

    Off Book #24 – Whalefall, with Brian Duffield & Daniel Kraus

    Happy Whalefall Weekend! Brian Duffield’s incredible adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel is now in cinemas. I was lucky enough to see an early screening and even luckier to get time with Brian and Daniel to talk about how the hell they made something so audacious. We talk daddy issues aplenty, whale stomach sets, practical FX and the toll they took on the star, Austin Abrams. And I get lost in my own rapture over a certain scene that almost made me feel a real, authentic human emotion. Unbelievable. Enjoy! Support Talking Scared and get become a Patreon subscriber. Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • October 13 · 1 hr 24 min

    299 – Will Maclean & Uneasy Islands in Time

    In Solace House, Will Maclean takes us back to the 90s for a drug-fuelled trip through some mindbending architecture. It’s a chance to get nostalgic for a more innocent time, when the clothes were baggy, the music was better, and you could spend a summer spent renovating an old asylum without needing to put in on TikTok. It’s all fun and games until the existential terror kicks in and the fabric of reality comes unwoven. Enjoy. This one was a good laugh. The Apparition Phase (2020), by Will Maclean And He Shall Appear (2025), by Kate van der Borgh The Modern Antiquarian (1998), by Julian Cope The Prisonhouse of Language (1972), by Fredric Jameson The Human Evasion (1969), by Celia Green Starmaker (1937), by Olaf Stapledon A Short Stay in Hell (2009), by Steven L. Peck “The Jaunt,” in Night Shift (1978), by Stephen King The Divine Farce (2009), by Michael Graziano Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • October 6 · 1 hr

    298 – Stephen King & The Final Turn of the Big Combination

    This episode needs no attempt at a witty introduction. Stephen King is back to talk about Other Worlds Than These – the concluding volume of The Talisman saga, begun with Peter Straub 45 years ago. We keep it spoiler-free, but we talk about Jack Sawyer’s journey and how it entwines with The Dark Tower. We reflect on The Talisman and Black House, on Wolf and my heartbreak. We discuss Peter’s inspiration for the story and how King summoned him to bring it to a close. And we even get some hints of what’s cooking in Steve’s brain for future projects. It seems he’s never slowing down, no matter what he say. I hope you enjoy this. Other books mentioned: Julia (1975), by Peter Straub Ghost Story (1979), by Peter Straub Redheaded Peckerwood (2010), by Christian Patterson King Sorrow (2025), by Joe Hill Sleeping Beauties (2017), by Stephen and Owen King Trad Wife (2026), by Sarah Langan Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 29 · 1 hr 28 min

    297 – Kyle Winkler & Roll For Your “F**K You” Stats

    Leaning into absolute high geekery this week – with Kyle Winkler’s novel of how family game night can go badly wrong! The Ship of Death is about a cursed (and I mean CURSED!) tabletop role-playing game and the unlucky couple who choose to play it. Or, as Kyle describes it “Dark Jumanji.” It prompts a conversation about games in life and fiction. Epistolary structure and found-fiction. We discuss his relationship with the bizarre, his love for mysteries without answers, we consider who is really responsible for the world-building in a story, and we pay a lot of respect to cosmic horror influences beyond Lovecraft. It’s was a delight to record. Hope you enjoy listening. Other books mentioned: Grasshands (2024), by Kyle Winkler Boris Says the Words (2022), by Kyle Winkler The Nothing That Is (2020), by Kyle Winkler Borne (2017), by Jeff VanderMeer Zothique (1970), by Clarke Ashton Smith The Dying Earth (1950), by Jack Vance Enduring Love (1997), by Ian McEwan Negative Space (2020), by B.R. Yeager True Crime (2020), by Samantha Kolesnik The House Next Door (1978), by Anne River Siddons My Dark Places (1996), by James Ellroy Penpal (2012), by Dathan Auerbach Mockingbird (1980), by Paul Tevis The Blacktongue Thief (2021), by Christopher Buehlman Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 22 · 1 hr 13 min

    296 – Deena Helm & Horror Says Free Palestine

    This week’s episode shows what a good haunted house can do. Deena Helm is a mixed American-Palestinian author, who’s debut novel, Our Cut of Salt, puts all the power of the Gothic to use in framing the occupation and oppression of Palestine. It takes place before the ongoing genocide, but offer a chance to consider how horror fiction can play its part in framing that obscenity. That all sounds heavy, and it rightfully is – but this book also has a frightening, tragic and murderous house at its core… so there’s (our kind) of fun to be had as well. This is an important episode for the show. I hope you listen and enjoy. Other books mentioned: White is for Witching (2009), by Helen Oyeyemi Tell Me I’m Worthless (2021), by Alison Rumfitt Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013), by Ahmed Saadawi Mornings in Jenin (2006), by Susan Abulhawa Behind You is the Sea (2024), by Susan Muaddi Darraj Gentle Things (2026), by Danielle Giles Hungerstone (2025), by Kat Dunn Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 15 · 1 hr 32 min

    295 – Chris Panatier & If These Walls Could Talk

    Home is where the horror is this week, with Chris Panatier and Worry Box! This latest offering from Panatier’s uniquely strange mind is a complete revision of the haunted house as we know it. It’s a house that means well, but understands little. Couple that with a family in flux and a child suffering intrusive thoughts, and you have a recipe for terrible, no-good disaster. In short, it’s 400 pages of slowly tightening dread! I hope you enjoy. Other books mentioned: The Redemption of Morgan Bright (2024), by Chris Panatier This House isn’t Haunted but We Are (2025), by Stephen Howard Our Cut of Salt (2026), by Deena Helm Pet Semetary (1983), by Stephen King The Library at Mount Char (2015), by Scott Hawkins Gideon the Ninth (2019), by Tamsyn Muir Gormenghast (1950), by Mervyn Peak Angel Down (2025), by Daniel Kraus Chimera Skin (2026), by Johnny Compton The Butcher of Nazareth (2026), by David Scott Hay Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 8 · 1 hr 49 min

    294 – China Miéville & A Million Dreaming Words for Ghost

    There are big books and big books. This week we cover a HUGE book. China Miéville is the guest. The award-winning author of Perdido Street Station, Embassytown, The City & the City, and other modern speculative classics – and he’s back with a book two decades in the making. The Rouse is an epic of true proportions, a 1300-page saga of the twentieth century, rife with war, atrocity, tragedy, and a secret war fought with ghosts?? That’s the premise but it barely touches the sides of this ginormous undertaking. This is not just a conversation, it’s a search for answers – in which we plumb the personal, political, and supernatural influences behind this story of shady military conspiracy and ghosts of many strange kinds. I hope you enjoy, ‘cos I worked my ass off for this one! Other books mentioned: King Rat (1999), by China Miéville The City & The City (2009), by China Miéville Ducks, Newburyport (2019), by Lucy Ellman Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), by Thomas Pyncheon Against the Day (2006), by Thomas Pyncheon House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski “The Ash Tree” (1904), by M.R. James A Dark Corner (1971), by Celia Dale Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • September 1 · 1 hr 5 min

    293 – James Tynion IV & How to Draw a Dismembered Child

    James Tynion IV is a modern master of the horror comic. He’s the maniac behind so many contemporary classic series, but perhaps none are such pop-culture behemoths as Something is Killing the Children. I mean… with a title like that, how could it fail? With the new omnibus collection out right now, and an in-world novel (co-authored with Kiersten White) coming in October, I thought now was a good time to get James on the show and talk monsters, masks, mythology and the most baddass hero in graphic novels. Enjoy! Other books mentioned: The Woods (2014-2017), by James Tynion IV Memetic (2014-2015), by James Tynion IV Hide (2022), by Kiersten White At the Mountains of Madness (2019), by Gau Tenabe Monster (1994-2001), by Naoki Urusawa Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 25 · 1 hr 16 min

    292 – Chuck Wendig & Little Vulgar Hell-Babies

    Wendig is here!! The man my wife refers to as “Chuck Apples” (as opposed to “Chuck Fight Club) is back to talk about his most fun, yet nastiest book to date. The Calamities is what would happen if The Godfather had cenobites, if Logan Roy had made a pact with monsters, it prompts me to ask the questions “who’s your favourite demon Chuck?” That kinda book. Chuck tells us how the study of demonology has underpinned almost his entire writing career. We discuss the increasingly tight links between his novels, the influence of D&D structure, and the challenge of making the reader care about some of the worst-behaved characters in the world. And I drop the C-bomb for the first time on air. That damn baby deserves it. Enjoy! Other books mentioned: Staircase in the Woods (2024), by Chuck Wendig Daytide (2026), by Chris Panatier The Three Body Problem (2008), by Cixin Liu Books of Blood (1984-88), by Clive Barker Cabal (1988), by Clive Barker Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology (2021), by Ed Simon Blacktail (2026), by Scott Hawkins Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 18 · 1 hr 29 min

    291 – Natasha Pulley & No Priests Were Harmed in the Making of this Podcast

    No one let the Pope listen to this week’s episode. Our guest is Natasha Pulley, genre-defying author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Bedlam Stacks, The Kingdoms, and now, in the The Salt King she pits the Vatican and Catholic Doctrine against something much, much older, lurking in the salt mines of the world. It leads us to a conversation about faith of many kinds, about reality-adjacent fiction, the horrid truth of Sodom and Gomorrah, dark representations of the Catholic Church, and the challenge of fusing folk horror and global apocalypse. There are also some holy dick pics. Enjoy! Other books mentioned: Gentle Things (2026), by Danielle Giles Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2024), by Susanna Clarke The Hill in the Dark Grove (2026), by Liam Higginson The Name of the Rose (1980), by Umberto Eco Foundation (1951), by Isaac Asimov A Canticle for Liebowitz (1959), by Walter M. Miller Jr Father Alberto and the Flying Girl (2026), by Timothy X Atack Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 14 · 1 hr 15 min

    Off Book #23 – Are We Doomed? A Cheerful Guide to Apocalypse, with Ben Bradford

    Happy Friday! Let’s talk about the end of the world. Our guest is Ben Bradford, creator and host of Are We Doomed? – the new hit podcast examining the existential risks facing humanity. “Dammit Neil”, I hear you say “Are we not suffering enough.” To you I reply … sure, Ben and I make talk nukes and rogue AI, climate change and supervolcanoes, but believe me, you’ll feel more optimistic at the end of this episode! Somehow, the general answer to Are We Doomed seems to be “no, not if we don’t want to be.” So have faith, listen, and have a great weekend. Enjoy! Support Talking Scared and get become a Patreon subscriber. Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 11 · 1 hr 14 min

    290 – Liam Higginson & Awful Things in Lonely Farmhouses

    Finally, we dare venture to the darkest land of all. Wales! After years of avoiding the terror of the Valleys, Liam Higginson takes us to The Hill in the Dark Grove – his debut novel of isolation, folk-memory, and things unearthed from the soil of a mountain farm. We talk about the link between folklore and nationalism, about marriage and madness (not linked) and why it’s always men who go barmy in these situations. This is up there with my favourite books of the year. Enjoy! Other books mentioned: The Shining (1977), by Stephen King Incidents Around the House (2024), by Josh Malerman The Salt King (2026), by Natasha Pulley Small Gods (1992), by Terry Pratchett Meet Me at the Surface (2024), by Jodie Matthews Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil (1998), by Avram Davison and Grania Davis North Woods (2023), by Daniel Mason Country People (2026), by Daniel Mason Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • August 4 · 1 hr 14 min

    289 – Annie Jacobsen & Be Afraid… Be Very Afraid

    This may be my scariest episode ever! We’ve covered non-fiction before, but rarely is the truth more frightening than the stories we tell. This week it just might be… cos Annie Jacobsen is here with Biological War: A Scenario. It unveils a narrative of speculative reality, in which an engineered pathogen escapes a lab, and runs rampant through our civilisation. Cities fall, millions die, the lights go out. I dared myself to read it. I dare you to listen to Annie tell us about her research, and the stuff she found that scares the hell out of her. Enjoy (sort of!) Other books mentioned: Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024), by Annie Jacobsen “A Modest Proposal” (1729), by Jonathan Swift World War Z (2006), by Max Brooks The Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley A Brief History of the Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters (2021), by Andrew H. Knoll Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 31 · 41 min

    Let Us Palaver #10 – Wolves of the Calla Debrief

    In our main Wolves of the Calla Deep Dive, we came within touching distance of the Dark Tower’s biggest secret yet. Chris doesn’t know what to think, which is just where Nat and I want him. So we stuck around to talk in full-spoiler terms about all the stuff Chris is yet to discover, and our own thoughts on books to come, on choice lines from Calla, and just what that reveal in the final pages really means for the nature of Roland’s world. Enjoy. But for your father’s sake Do Not Listen if you haven’t read the entire Dark Tower saga!! 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 28 · 2 hr 30 min

    The Dark Tower Deep Dive #10 – Wolves of the Calla

    Hallelujah, come commala, we’re back together! Finally, after stopping for side missions with Jack Sawyer, and a pair of stories of Roland’s younger days, we’re back in Midworld’s here-and-now to push on towards the Dark Tower. It’s time for Wolves of the Calla, a novel of old friends, new enemies…and a quite surprising amount of boobs. This is also where certain things start to get REAL!! We’re on the precipice of great discovery and you can hear Chris Panatier try to deal with it. Enjoy folken! Support Talking Scared on Patreon (say thankya!) 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  • July 21 · 1 hr 11 min

    288 – Danielle Giles & A Spoonful of Skulldust (Makes the Medicine Go Down)

    Time for a horrid history lesson. Daniell Giles is the author of medieval gothic Mere (2025), and the brand-new Restoration horror-show, Gentle Things. In this episode she talks about the nightmare of research, the similarities between the 1660s and our own sh**ty decade, and how much we both love Sarah Waters. But mostly it’s a guided tour of a dirty period in history, of murder, misogyny and… medicinal cannibalism! Yes, it’s a thing, and it’s nasty. Enjoy Support Talking Scared on Patreon Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Showing 1–20 of 35 episodes