Talking Scared

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

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.

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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

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 [email protected]

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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

Enjoy!

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Check out the Talking Scared Merch line – at VoidMerch

Come talk books on Threads, Bluesky, and Instagram, or email direct to [email protected]

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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.

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 [email protected]

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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:

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 [email protected]

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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:

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 [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s episode shows what a good haunted house can do.

Deena Helm is a mixed American-Palestinian author, who’s

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 [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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:

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 [email protected]

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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:

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 [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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:

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 [email protected]

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices