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Time to get liminal and haunted. 

Gwendolyn Kiste comes back to Talking Scared for another high-concept twist on the Gothic. In The Haunting of Velkwood, and entire street turns ghostly overnight. Yeah, I can’t explain that any more clearly, we’ll leave it to Gwendolyn.

Despite this being a book centered on trauma and angst, we do a whole lot of laughing. Amongst the chuckles we also sneak in conversation about the many meanings of the word haunted, child-free horror fiction televisual references, and just what makes the American suburbs so damn creepy!

Enjoy!

The Haunting of Velkwood was published on March 5th by Saga Press

Other books mentioned:

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Sometimes you meet someone who just gets you.

Like Tim Lebbon. A man who writes riotously good adventure-horror novels, and also likes running outrageous distances up big hills. What a pleasure it was to speak to him.

The main topic of conversation is his new novel eco-horror novel, Among the Living. A story of ancient buried history and ‘intelligent’ infection, it blends the paranoia of The Thing with the ragtag group heroism and intensity of Aliens. In short, it’s good!

Tim and I talk about eco-horror, about the biological menaces facing mankind in the future, we discuss how writing action helps with writing character, and I tell him why this book freaked me out so much.

Oh, and we do spend some time talking about running up big hills. But we try and keep it relevant to the horror and the writing… Give me a break, how often do I meet a soul-brother like this?

Enjoy!

Among the Living was published on February 6th by Titan Books

Other books mentioned:

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Back from a too-short break, but ready to delve into the greatest haunted house of them all! Shirley Jackson’s Hill House. The place where the scary things walk alone.

Thankfully, I am not alone. I’m joined by my own group of creepy ghost-hunters: Paul Tremblay (A Head Full of Ghosts, Cabin at the End of the World), Johnny Compton (The Spite House) and Catriona Ward (Last House on Needless Street, Looking Glass Sound). I can think of no better collective to explore the corridors of this book and house.

We get INTO it. The crafted magic of that infamous opening paragraph, the long legacy of creepy houses in American fiction, the choice between the haunted void and hideous, mundane reality. Plus, a raft of film recommendations, and a few brief forays into our favourite real haunted places.

This one was necessary. Hope you enjoy it.

Other books mentioned:

House of Leaves (2000), by Mark Z. Danielewski

Carrie (1974), by Stephen King

‘Salem’s Lot (1975), by Stephen King

The Shining (1977),  by Stephen King

The Spite House (2023), by Johnny Compton

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers (1983), by John Gardner

The Letters of Shirley Jackson (2021), edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman

When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow

“Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” (1904), by M.R. James

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Yes I put sex in the title to make you download it. Did it work?

It shouldn’t be necessary, ‘cos this week’s guest is an absolute literary icon. Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, Haunted, Lullaby, Choke, and last year’s Not Forever, But For Now – a writer who helped shape the nihilism and extremity of 90s and noughties fiction. The man who makes people faint with his short stories. 

He’s here, talking to us!

In this conversation Chuck and I roam all over the blasted map of his fiction. We talk about transgression and provocation, about extremity in life and story, about bad reviews, toxic interviews and toxic masculinity. And yes, we talk about “Guts.”

This was a privilege. I hope you are shocked and appalled.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

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Are you hungry? 

If so we have a chewy, salty, deeply flavoured feast for you this week. Ally Wilkes returns to Talking Scared to discuss the icebound horrors of her new novel, Where the Dead Wait. It’s a tale of Arctic exploration gone very wrong, complete with haunting, human suffering and the morbid fascination of cannibalism!

Don’t pretend that hasn’t whet your appetite.

Ally and I get into the raw details of consuming human meat, we talk about queerness in historical horror fiction, we discuss the nature of haunting and how a historical horror novel can have links to a sci-fi horror classic, and we talk reminisce about the time Ally nearly died on a Himalaya in an appalling coat.

Jolly good fun wot wot!

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilke 

The Shining (1977), by Stephen King

What Cares the Sea (1960), by Kenneth Cooke

The Secret Sharer (1910), by Joseph Conrad

Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Shelley

Ice Blink: The Tragic Fate of Sir John Franklin's Lost Polar Expedition (2000), by Scott Cookman

Sundial (2022), by Catriona Ward

Dead Silence (2022), by S.A. Barnes

Ghost Station (2024), by S.A. Barnes

Indianapolis: The True Story of the Greatest Naval Disaster in US History (2018), by Lynn Vincent and Sarah Vladic

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The first new book coverage of 2024 – and it starts us off on suitably horrific footing.

Jenny Kiefer’s debut novel, This Wretched Valley, has been getting a huge amount of early buzz in horror circles. It’s the story of four unlucky adventurers, who head into the Kentucky woods and meet all manner of nasty sh*t. 

It’s a tightly wound tale of misadventure, that takes at least some inspiration from the Dyatlov Pass mystery. And if you don’t know what that is… boy have you got a wiki hole to disappear down.

Jenny and I talk about writing and selling a brutal debut, arthouse horror influences, the terror of climbing and research serendipity… plus, what she thinks happened to those poor Russian hikers over 60 years ago.

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

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To kick off a new year of Talking Scared, I’ve gone and hooked us a big guest, with a whopper of a story.

John Langan is the author of The Fisherman. It’s one of the great works of supernatural fiction written this century, but its story doesn’t end at its back-cover. The strange mythology of The Fisherman extends beyond, swimming further downstream, to pop its monstrous head above the surface in John’s wider universe of short stories and novellas.

In this special episode, we talk at length about The Fisherman – about the classic books, real-world legends and cultural beliefs that inspired it, and about the process of building a  whole new mythos.

John is the poet-scholar of horror. This is the class you wish you’d taken in college. 

Enjoy!

Other books mentioned:

House of Windows (2009), by John Langan

“Mother of Stone”, in The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies (2013), by John Langan

“Bor Urus”, in Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan

Our Share of Night (2023), by Mariana Enriquez

The Croning (2012), by Laird Barron

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron

Pet Sematary (1983), by Stephen King

“The Monkey’s Paw” (1902), by W. W. Jacobs

Absolom, Absolom (1951), by William Faulkner

“The Call of Cthulhu” (1928), by H.P. Lovecraft

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), by Roberto Calasso

“Development” (1889), by Robert Browning

Ironweed (1983), by William Kennedy

Come Closer (2003), by Sara Gran

Motherless Child (2012), by Glen Hirshberg

Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow (contains “Glen Hirshberg’s “Devil” and John Langan’s “Bludzuger”)

Furnace (2016), by Livia Llewelyn

Join the Laird Barron Readalong

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Another year done. We squeaked through without another plague or a nuclear apocalypse (don’t tempt fate Neil!!) and along the way, oh the stories we read! 

The only thing left to do after mopping away the chalk pentagrams, is to run you through my very favourite books of the year. The so-called Best Horror Novels of 2023, as chosen by me. Ten of them to be precise, cos humans are obsessed with round numbers. Mwaha, in fact I talk about thirteen!!

Thanks again for listening and supporting the show. You give my addled rants a semblance of purpose, and it’s appreciated.

Onward into 2024 and its multitude of horrors!!!

Enjoy.

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Dickens said that Christmas Eve was a time for ghost stories, and who am I to argue?

It is my show though, so I get to pick the ghost story – and I picked Peter Straub’s classic novel of the name. A tale of old men with horror in their youths, seductive evil and a town besieged by winter and… worse things.

It’s a slippery beast though, this novel. So to really help pin it down, I needed help. I called and help came, in the form of Alan Baxter (author of Sallow Bend, The Gulp and many more), Lauren Bolger (Kill Radio) and John Langan, whose novel, The Fisherman, continues what I think is Straub’s American gothic legacy. 

We talk about the book in granular detail – it’s monsters, it’s politics, it’s storytelling and, of course, it’s ghosts. It’s about as jolly a time as you can have talking about ancient evil visiting small towns. But enough about Santa.

Light the fire, pour a drink, enjoy! You’ve earned it.

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And so we come to the end of another year in horror. Time to look back at the best that 2023 has had to offer, as determined by three of the best in the business.

My trusted horror chancellor, Emily Hughes joins me ­– alongside C.J. Leede, the author of this year’s gloriously transgressive Maeve Fly, and the maestro of the macabre himself, Victor Lavalle. Together we cover the year’s freshest nightmares in the macro and the micro, looking at wider trends and picking our own favourite horror fiction from this year’s epic crop.

This is a blast. We laugh, we yell, and we declare that the nation is strong, and good, and frightening. 

Enjoy!

Books Picked:

Books Anticipated:

 
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