Talking Scared

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

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

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

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

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