Talking Scared

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We return to Australia for the second time in a month, to find that (once again), home invasion isn’t the worst thing to happen on a typical day.

Alan Baxter’s Blood Covenant is a violent, thrilling story of a threeway battle between an innocent family, a nasty criminal gang of bogans (see, I’m learning!) and an otherworldly force that is even worse! Think, what if The Strangers took place in the Overlook Hotel.

It’s a hugely enjoyable book that prompts a conversation about the influence of 70s and 80s paperback classics, the overlap of horror and crime in Australian fiction, some extreme horror movies and a whole long celebration of unpretentious storytelling.

Enjoy!

Blood Covenant is released May 24th from Cemetary Dance

Other books mentioned:

The Gulp (2021), by Alan Baxter

Hidden City (2018), by Alan Baxter

The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia’s Founding (1986), by Robert Hughes

“Devil” by Glen Hirshberg, in Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous (2022), edited by Ellen Datlow

The Fog (1975), by James Herbert

The Hunted (2021), by Gabriel Bergmoser

Terra Nullius (2017), by Claire G. Coleman

Dirty Heads (2021), by Aaron Dries

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A charming man approaches. With dark secrets to tell you.

Yeah, that L.P. Hernandez. Author of the novella In the Valley of the Headless Men and the forthcoming collection, No Gods, Only Chaos. Both are great; both are entirely different. One of them will expand your horizons. One of them will shrink you in horror.

I’ll let you find out which.

We talk about both books in this episode, digging into the real historical mystery behind the novella (it’s fascinating) and the craft and commitment that went into the collection. How to write emotion and character concisely, using action within metaphor, the presence (or lack of) military vets in horror, and when, exactly, LP knew he was becoming a better writer.

If you are starting out as a storyteller, I think you’ll find this episode enlightening and inspirational. I did. Kudos to L.P. for that!

Enjoy!

In the Valley of the Headless Men was published on January 29th by Cemetery Games

No Gods, Only Chaos is published on June 4th, by DarkLit Press

Other books mentioned:

Stargazers (2022), by L.P. Hernandez

The Militia House (2023), by John Milas

Mr Shivers (2010), by Robert Jackson Bennett

Bound Feet (2022), by Kelsea Yu

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Opinions are like assholes, they say. Everybody has one.

The subtext of that, is that you shouldn’t show them to people.

Well my guest and I don’t hold back on ours this week. Robert Ottone joins me for a conversation about his debut novel for adults, The Vile Thing We Created, which is almost exactly one year old.

I loved it, which is more than either of us can say for the one-year old little boy that it is about. This novel skewers the impulse to procreation – presenting a horror story of parenthood that will make the child-free sweat and the happily en-familied nod sagely (though hopefully your child isn’t a cosmic-horror menace.

Robert and I wade into the controversy over not having children? We ask, how people summoj the courage to do it in such a frightening world, and we also hold forth on other topics, such as why most colleagues are boring and some ill-advised movie opinions. I blame Robert, I’m usually so shy and retiring.

Seriously though, this is a great conversation. More disorganised and discursive than usual. Though for once, that is no bad thing.

Enjoy!

The Vile Thing We Created was published on April 18th 2023, by Hydra.

Other books mentioned:

The Triangle (2022), by Robert Ottone

Less Than Zero (1985), by Bret Easton Ellis

Lunar Park (2005), by Bret Easton Ellis

Imperial Bedrooms (2010), by Bret Easton Ellis

Sefira and Other Betrayals (2019), by John Langan

Watchmen (1987), by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Filthy Creation (2023), by Caroline Hagood

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Ah the madhouse. The loony bin. The ASYLUM!!

A classic horror location. One of my favourites, but problematic as hell in the wrong hands.

Thankfully, I have the right author for the topic. Christ Panatier has the talent and the sensitivity to ensure that his novel, The Redemption of Morgan Bright can engage with the tropes without perpetuating them. He brings something as old-as-time but very new to asylum horror, and the results are dizzying, terrifying, awful.

We talk about the perils of research for an empathetic horror writer, we discuss some hideous medical practices from the past, and we look hard at the desecration of rights that we all grew up assuming were here to stay.

Plus, the way to make friends in the horror community...

Enjoy!

The Redemption of Morgan Bright was published on April 23rd by Angry Robot Books

Other books mentioned:

• The Phlebotomist (2020), by Chris Panatier
• Stringer (2022), by Chris Panatier
• Annihilation (2014), by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Haunting of Hill House (1959), by Shirley Jackson
• Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Mad Wives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s (1988), by Carol A. B. Warren
• Full Immersion (2022), by Gemma Amor
• The Grip of It (2017), by Jac Jemc
• The House at the End of Lacelean Street (2024), by Catherine McCarthy
• The Spite House (2023), by Johnny Compton
• The Day of the Door (2024), by Laurel Hightower

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We all love a good spooky house. And most of us enjoy a terrifying home-invasion ordeal (or at least, I know I do).

What happens when you put them together? Kaaron Warren’s The Underhistory is the answer, but it’s nothing at all like what you’d expect.

This new novel by the award-winning Australian writer is a story of memory, of rooms and architecture, of violence and misogyny, and of a very unusual old lady. We talk about all of that and more. It’s a great conversation, one in which we go hunting for the secrets of her book together.

Enjoy!

The Underhistory was published on April 11th by Viper

Other books mentioned:

• Slights (2009), by Kaaron Warren
• The Grief Hole (2016), by Kaaron Warren
• Any Human Heart (2002), by William Boyd
• The Measure of Sorrow (2023), by J. Ashley-Smith

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I bite off a lot this week, in a five-way conversation with editors and contributors to the ever-so-of-the-moment anthology The Black Girl Survives in This One. That’s a promise right there on the title page, but as you will find out, survival is not always the same thing as living happily ever after.

Saraciea J. Fennell, Desiree S. Evans, Monica Brashears & Eden Royce talk to me about the vision (and necessity) of the project and where their stories came from? We discuss the role of urban and family legend, authentic dialogue, writing for younger readers and how horror’s treatment of Black writers and characters has changed.

Enjoy!

The Black Girl Survives in This One was published on April 2nd by Flatiron Books

Other books mentioned:

• Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison
• 60 Black Women in Horror Fiction (2014), by Sumiko Saulson
• Of One Blood (1903), by Pauline Hopkins
• Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (2023), ed, by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams
• The Vampire Huntress Legends Series (2003-2009), by L.A. Banks

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I’m in literary hero territory again … at least this time it’s sunny!

My guest is Scarlett Thomas, the groundbreaking writer of PopCo, Oligarchy, The Seed Collectors and the (post)modern speculative classic, The End of Mr Y. She’s one of my favourite writers, who has never seen five or six separate genres she can’t mash together.

This time around we are talking “Hot Gothic” in The Sleepwalkers, a darkly playful tale of a vacation–and a marriage–gone horribly wrong.

We cover accidentally arriving at a structure, the many ways to build characters from scratch, the dark consequences of sex and desire taken too far – and we agree on how hotels are just inherently creepy.

Great book. Great guest.

Enjoy!

The Sleepwalkers was published on April 9th by Simon and Schuster

Other books mentioned:

• The End of Mr Y (2006), by Scarlett Thomas
• The Seed Collectors (2015), by Scarlett Thomas
• Oligarchy (2019), by Scarlett Thomas
• Open: An Autobiography (2009), by Andre Agassi
• The Woman in White (1860), by Wilkie Collins
• The Moonstone (1868), by Wilkie Collins
• Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn
• The Talented Mr Ripley (1955), by Patricia Highsmith
• Hangsaman (1951), by Shirley Jackson

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Carrie White turns 50 years old today!

April 5th, 1974 – the day King’s debut came out, and the world of horror we know live in changed forever.

To celebrate such an auspicious anniversary, there are only two people I could invite to this party. Step up Nat Cassidy and Ally Malinenko – writers who understand King and that bitter, brutal world between childhood and adulthood.

We talk about empathy and monsters, about the horror of high school, the abject and the menstruation taboo and about how we are all living in Margaret White’s America now…

Raise a glass to the prom queen of horror. She can light her own candles.

Enjoy!

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Alas, we come to the end!

Stephen Graham Jones’s The Angel of Indian Lake brings the most important horror trilogy of the century to its conclusion. For one last time we return to Proofrock, Idaho – to watch Jade Daniels do battle with monsters in the wood and the demons in her head.

SGJ also comes back to Talking Scared to finish our adjacent trilogy of conversations about these books. We talk about slashers and final girls for sure, but as ever with Stephen, these are windows onto something more profound – and he gives us his insight into how horror, justice, violence and luck operate in fiction.

This all sounds very profound. It is. But in the coolest way possible. The man is a rock star….

… but I STILL manage to freak him out with a ghost story.

Enjoy – it’s been a ride!

The Angel of Indian Lake was published on March 26thth by Saga Press and Titan Books

Other books mentioned:

• Where the Red Fern Grows (1961), by Wilson Rawls
• Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #10 (1984), by Jim Shooter
• In Cold Blood (1965), by Truman Capote
• Morphology of the Folktale (1928), by Vladimir Propp
• The Red Badge of Courage (1895), by Stephen Crane
• The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991), by Jean Baudrillard
• The Name of the Rose (1980), by Umberto Eco
• The Hollow Kind (2022), by Andy Davidson
• Piranesi (2021), by Susannah Clarke
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859), by Charles Dickens
• The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’ (2000), by Slavoj Žižek
• The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024), by Katherine Arden
• The Bear and the Nightingale (2017), by Katherine Arden
• The Others of Edenwell (2023), by Verity Holloway
• “A Fish Story” (2002), by Gene Wolfe

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Chi-Town!!

We’re heading to the midwestern metropolis this week, for a conversation with Cina Pelayo – all about murder, mystery, history and strange things in the water.

Her new novel, Forgotten Sisters is a heady, dreamlike concoction of Chicago lore and much older horrors. It features a pair of very wyrd sisters and a house by a river that holds nothing good.

As well as all of that, we talk about Cina’s personal journey with the paranormal, mermaid sightings, writing law enforcement, and wrestling with weird voices in fiction.

Oh, and the abject horror of social media!!

Enjoy!

Forgotten Sisters was published on March 19th by Thomas & Mercer

Other books mentioned:

• Children of Chicago (2021), by Cynthia Pelayo
• The Shoemaker’s Magician (2023), by Cynthia Pelayo
• Loteria (2023), by Cynthia Pelayo
• Into the Forest and All the Way Through (2020), by Cynthia Pelayo
• The Reformatory (2023), by Tananarive Due

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