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Talking Scared: Daily Summaries Delivered
by 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.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 5 days ago1h 32m
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
- 1 weeks ago1h 49m
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
- 2 weeks ago1h 5m
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
- 3 weeks ago1h 16m
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
- Aug 18, 20261h 29m
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
- Aug 14, 20261h 15m
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
- Aug 11, 20261h 14m
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
- Aug 4, 20261h 14m
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
About Talking Scared
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.
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