Talking Scared

Send us a textFebruary’s focus on the best new Women-in-Horror continues with Leon Craig and her debut collection, Parallel Hells. Leon is a North London writer with a globalised imagination. She’s been published all over the place, but is also a member of the Future’s in the Making, Queer writer’s collective. That perspective is inescapable in this collection. Wherever her stories take us, from an Eastern European pogrom, to a Viking settlement, or a BDSM dungeon frequented by denizens of the underworld – Leon maintains an outsider’s eye and a clear knowledge of the deliciously Gothic possibilities of Queerness.We talk Jewish folklore, emotional angst, mid-20s ennui, and the bright, healthy, happy side of sadomasochism. All that with some demonic-inflection and a good dose of the odd and downright weird. What’s not to like?Enjoy!Parallel Hells is published February 17th by Sceptre Books.Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week is my personal Everest. Thomas Olde Heuvelt, bestselling Euro-horror whizzkid author of HEX, joins me to to talk about his newest novel – Echo. It’s a story of mountaineering, and madness, and monsters of the soul.If you follow me on any form of social media you may have seen that this book utterly distressed me. I can’t even say why myself; it just tweaked a nerve. Echo is a wonderfully easter-egg-laden novel, full of references to other horror masterworks. As you’ll hear in this conversation, that is no surprise. Thomas knows what he’s doing. He knows how to twist the knife (or the climbing axe) for maximum effect.We talk about mountains, of rock and of the mind. We talk about the role that those grand peaks play in horror through the ages, and how his own relationship with the mountains is one of both fascination and terror – whereas, for me, it’s just the latter. We also discuss writing horror in translation, about the role of erotic love in horror fiction, and the creepy mountain stories that led to the creation of this nightmarish book.Enjoy!Other books mentioned on the show include: Into Thin Air (1997), by John Krakauer (a phenomenal non fiction account of disaster on Everest) Touching the Void (1988), by Joe Simpson The Raw Shark Texts (2007), by Stephen Hall Maxwell’s Demon (2021), by Stephen Hall  Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textIn space no one can hear you read! This week our guest is S.A. Barnes – who’s new novel Dead Silence answers the (stupid) question, once and for all, of whether horror can take place in space. It’s a tale of a blue-collar crew, who encounter more than they reckoned for when salvaging a fabled spaceship. You think you’ve seen this play out before, I know.  You haven’t.Stacey and I talk about all things “space-horror”, from the looming shadow of Alien and Event Horizon, to the most truly terrifying thing you can now encounter in orbit: a tech bro. We also talk romance in horror, Scottish ghosts, classic X Files episodes, what makes for a great haunted house (corners, amongst other things), and we both lament our shared anxiety when we hear a sound we can’t recognise.This is just a pure fun book, and delightful conversation that boldly goes … etc, etc. Dead Silence is published on February 8th by Tor Nightfire.Enjoy! Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textIs it cold where you are? If so, do I have the book for you.Our guest is Ally Wilkes, whose debut novel, All the White Spaces was my pick for the most anticipated horror novel of early 2022. I was NOT disappointed.The book takes us to Antarctica in 1919, just months after the end of the First World War, in the dying years of the Heroic Age of Exploration. There, trapped in the frozen ‘overwinter’ the team of men are forced to confront a malignant presence that draws them out into the cold.Did that give you a shiver? The good kind? Yes!Ally’s book is the springboard for a great conversation about exploration and hauntings. We debate over what the thing in the darkness is. Is it a ghost, a god, an evil sense of anti-human geography?But beyond that we also get into all kinds of meaty, chewy topics, such as how her novel unpicks and deconstructs the long-celebrated ideas of masculinity, heroism, nationhood and empire. Yet, despite all that, the Daily Mail still gave it a good review. It’s THAT good a book. Enjoy!!All the White Spaces is released in the UK on January 25th by Titan Books, and on Mach 22nd by Atria in North America. Other books mentioned in this episode include:  Tell Me I’m Worthless (2021), by Alison Rumfitt Dead Silence (2021), by S. A. Barnes Echo (2021), by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Road of Bones (2021), by Christopher Golden The Terror (2007), by Dan Simmons Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver The Worst Journey in the World (1922), by Apsley Cherry-Garrard Who Goes There (1938), by John W. Campbell Jr. (basis for the 1982 movie, The Thing) Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com  Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week it’s time for good girls and bad girls to unite.Our guest is Kristi DeMeester whose new novel, Such A Pretty Smile sinks its teeth deep into the raised hand of misogyny. It’s a tale of violence and viciousness and vivid nightmares – and a whole new apparatus to explore the evils that men do. At this point I assume we’ve already weeded out the guys who roll their eyes at #metoo!? That’s for the best cos this is a feminism-heavy week. We talk about how horror treats women, from monstering menstruation to imagining female puberty as a threshold into hell. Along the way we cover the awful concept of the ‘lesser’ dead, the question of whether pretty girl privilege is a thing, and whether men really think women are too delicate to write such awful things. We also consider why dogs can be much scarier than wolves. This book started my year off right. Ambiguous, though-provoking, and ANGRY. Kristi is not f*cking around here. Enjoy!!Such a Pretty Smile is released January 18th by St Martin’s Press.Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com  Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textKicking off the New Year right, by interviewing one of my favourite living writers.  John Connolly is the author of the bestselling Charlie Parker series, a 19 book odyssey that takes us from the Maine coast to the darkest corners of the USA (and elsewhere), in the process, transmuting hardboiled detective noir into cosmic horror.After two decades of reading about Parker, you can be sure I have plenty to ask John – about writing American horror as an Irishman, Maine’s hostile spaces, the thrilling allure of literary violence, and whether he has an end in sight.But John is also here to talk about a whole other beast. Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction is his mammoth attempt to map the contours of his native literature, and expose the snobbery that has suppressed it. We talk a lot about how genre works (and doesn’t work), and how Irish fiction is at the very bedrock of this horror thing we all love.I’m a fanboy this week, no point denying it. I just did my best not to embarrass myself – especially as we were both enjoying a festive drink!Enjoy!!Shadow Voices: 300 Years of Irish Genre Fiction was published October 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton. Other books mentioned in this episode include: Every Dead Thing (1999), by John Connolly – the first Charlie Parker book. Dark Matter (2010), by Michelle Paver All the White Spaces (2022), by Ally Wilkes The Art of the Glimpse: 100 Irish Short Stories (2020), by Sinéad Gleeson American Gods (2001), by Neil Gaiman The Godwulf Manuscript (1973), by Robert B. Parker (first appearance of Spenser) Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textIt’s just me this week – sneaking one last episode in to talk about my own personal top-10 horror novels (or horror-ish) from the last twelve months. It’s been a stellar year, and picking just ten books was a nightmare all of it’s own. But these things must be done. The world MUST know what one more straight, white guy thinks about culture, or society will collapse.  I hope you enjoy this as I get more and more animated as things go on. It’s a good job I’m taking next week off – I’m starting to sound manic. Have a great new year folks, and thanks for all your kindness and support this year.Here’s to 2022… it surely can’t be any worse.  Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWell, we made it to the end of this nightmare of a year. And though there has been plenty of horrific stuff along the way – war, plague, corruption … literal armed insurrection, at least the fictional horror has been fun. To commemorate a special year in horror, I’m getting the band back together. Sadie  Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror, and Emily Hughes of Tor Nightfire (and various other parishes) join me to talk about the stuff they have loved from the second half** of 2021. **if you missed our coverage of Jan-June, you can find it in episode 46.We pick the books that really stood out for us, plus many more that we enjoyed. We discuss the TV and movies that have shaken and stirred us since July, and we look ahead to the bright (dead)lights of horror to come in the New Year. We also pick apart some thorny issues plaguing the genre, like the ridiculousness of rating books by stars, and my own irritation at everything being compared to Get Out.Each of the books we mention is listed below, including an episode number if it has been previously featured on Talking Scared. Don’t look at that yet though; it’ll spoil the surprise.Enjoy, and well done for getting through the year. Books picked My Heart is a Chainsaw (2021), by Stephen Graham Jones **ep 54 Revelator (2021), by Daryl Gregory  When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson (2021), ed. by Ellen Datlow **ep 66 Cackle (2021), by Rachel Harrison  When the Reckoning Comes (2021), by Latanya McQueen The Spirit Engineer (2021), by A.J West **ep 71 Come With Me (2021), by Ronald Malfi **ep 49 The Deer Kings (2021), by Wendy N. Wagner **ep 69 Chasing the Boogeyman (2021), by Richard Chizmar **ep 52 Coming soon Manhunt (Feb 2022), by Gretchen Felker-Martin Such a Pretty Smile (Jan 2022), by Krist DeMeester All the White Spaces (Jan 2022), by Ally Wilkes Other books mentioned Reprieve (2021), by James Han Mattson  Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis A Touch of Jen (2021), by Beth Morgan Flowers for the Sea (2021) , by Zin E. Rocklyn Nightbitch (2021), by Rachel Yoder The Last House on Needless Street (2021), by Catriona Ward **ep30 Certain Dark Things (2021), by Silvia Moreno Garcia Nothing But Blackened Teeth (2021), by Cassandra Khaw **ep 61 The Death of Jane Lawrence (2021), by Caitlin Starling **ep 60 Queen of the Cicadas (2021), by V. Castro ** ep 42 The Book of Accidents (2021), by Chuck Wendig **ep 48 Rovers (2021), by Richard Lange The Turnout (2021), by Megan Abbott Comfort Me with Apples (2021), by Catherynne M. Valente ** ep 62 The Glassy Burning Floor of Hell (2021), by Brian Evenson **ep 51 Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com  Download Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week I bring you a ghost story, as befitting the season. Though it’s a little more lurid than Charles Dickens would have liked.The guest is A.J. West;   the book is The Spirit Engineer. It’s one of my very favourites of 2021. Set in Belfast between the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of war, it’s a tale of science and the supernatural. Of William Crawford, a man who wants proof of the beyond, and will risk everything to grasp it. It’s actually based on real people and events, which I didn’t know, and still find incredible.A.J and I talk about spiritualism and deceit, about the links between sex and seances, and about the rare appearance of a truly unlikeable male protagonist. We disagree a little, AJ thinks William’s he’s an antihero, I think he’s an asshole, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the standout character of the year for me.I hope you get chance to pour a drink, pull up a chair, and read this book over Christmas. Enjoy  You can read more about the story behind The Spirit Engineer on A.J’s website, ajwestauthor.comSupport Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPodCome talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textThis week I am going to utterly ruin your festive mood!My guest is Ross Jeffery – author of Juniper, Tome (for which he was Bram Stoker nominated) and numerous short stories. His work is grim, gritty, gory and other words beginning with G - but they are nothing compared to the sheer horror of his latest work, Only the Stains Remain.Yeah, this is one of those special episodes in which I feel duty-bound to roll out the trigger warnings. Only the Stains Remain is about child abuse, and it pulls no punches. Feeling festive yet, Ho Ho Ho, etc. The novella is a savage revenge-trip of blood and guts in which awful things happen – but thankfully – often to awful people.So, you’ve been warned. But also be reassured. Neither the conversation, nor Ross’s book goes into exploitative details – and we manage to talk about a surprising number of very jolly things - from why Ross is drawn to such extreme projects, why writing for shock alone never really works, what it was like to be Bram Stoker-ed out of the blue, and what the members of Ross’ church make of his writing.It’s a mix of the horrific and the wholesome this week. Which could describe most of my Christmases. Enjoy Books discussed in this episode include: Boys in the Valley (2021), by Philip Fracassi The Girl Next Door (1989), by Jack Ketchum Haunted (2005), by Chuck Palahniuk Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (2021), by Eric LaRocca Ghoul n’ the Cape (2021), by Josh Malerman  Support Talking Scared on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/TalkingScaredPod Come talk books on Twitter @talkscaredpod, on Instagram, and TikTok Or email direct to talkingscaredpod@gmail.com Download Novellic on Google Play or Apple Store.Support the show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices