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!

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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

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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

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In our main Wolves of the Calla Deep Dive, we came within touching distance of the Dark Tower’s biggest secret yet. Chris doesn’t know what to think, which is just where Nat and I want him.

 So we stuck around to talk in full-spoiler terms about all the stuff Chris is yet to discover, and our own thoughts on books to come, on choice lines from Calla, and just what that reveal in the final pages really means for the nature of Roland’s world.

Enjoy. But for your father’s sake Do Not Listen if you haven’t read the entire Dark Tower saga!!

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Hallelujah, come commala, we’re back together!

Finally, after stopping for side missions with Jack Sawyer, and a pair of stories of Roland’s younger days, we’re back in Midworld’s here-and-now to push on towards the Dark Tower. It’s time for Wolves of the Calla, a novel of old friends, new enemies…and a quite surprising amount of boobs.

This is also where certain things start to get REAL!! We’re on the precipice of great discovery and you can hear Chris Panatier try to deal with it.

Enjoy folken!

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Time for a horrid history lesson.

Daniell Giles is the author of medieval gothic Mere (2025), and the brand-new Restoration horror-show, Gentle Things. In this episode she talks about the nightmare of research, the similarities between the 1660s and our own sh**ty decade, and how much we both love Sarah Waters.

But mostly it’s a guided tour of a dirty period in history, of murder, misogyny and… medicinal cannibalism!

Yes, it’s a thing, and it’s nasty.

Enjoy

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I hope you have your headtorch this week – cos we’re going to some deep, dark places.

Megan Bontrager’s debut novel, The Sea Hides its Dead, is a story of a mysterious cave, an unprepared expedition, and the monstrous secrets they find within. It’s shadowed by Lovecraft, it has big freaky monsters, and a whole deep mythology to unpick.

In short it’s my kinda story. The exact level of geekery I like to discuss.

Discuss we do. Meghan and I talk about video game inspirations, global sea cults, monsters and mysteries in The Bible, and worst of all – sleazy academics.

Plus, I give my honest opinion on spelunking! (It’s not favourable)

Enjoy

Other books mentioned:

• The Eye of Ouroboros (2024), by Megan Bontrager
• The Caretaker (2026), by Marcus Kliewer
• The Fisherman (2017), by John Langan
• The Ruins (2006), by Scott Smith
• Babylon, South Dakota (2026), by Tom Lin
• The Faceless Thing We Adore (2025), by Hester Steel

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Love is very very real on this week’s episode. The man, the myth, Chuck Tingle returns for a conversation about his latest novel, Fabulous Bodies – a story of body horror, influencer culture, artistic integrity and glam rock graverobbing.

We talk about all of that, as well as the different rules for famous people, combining humour and extreme violence, we get some nuggets of info about Chuck’s youth, and I rant about how I hate Coldplay.

Chuck is a force for good in the world. Hear his words. Read his books.

Enjoy.

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This week we’re putting the boot right into the ribs of the AI Industry, but doing it in horrific style, with Paul Tremblay and Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep.

It’s a story of a young gamer, tasked with piloting a man’s comatose body across the United States using AI tech. But deep inside, the man is still conscious, and what he’s experiencing is nightmarish.

Dark stuff, but surprisingly fun, maybe even funny. Paul and I talk about the humour and the human indignity of his story. He discusses the challenges of writing such a bodily novel, the horrific potential of endless virtual suffering, and we hear notes from the frontline of his legal case against ChatGPT.

Always a joy to have Paul on the show!

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

The Sister’s Brothers (2011), by Patrick DeWitt

“No, Artificial Intelligence is Not Conscious” (2026), by Ted Chiang – in The Atlantic

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), by Mary Roach

The Deluge (2023), by Stephen Markley

The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread But Can't Be Computed (2019), by Christof Koch

“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” (1967), by Harlan Ellison

The Loop (2020), by Jeremy Robert Johnson

A Short Stay in Hell (2009), by Stephen L. Peck

The Flayed Man (2026), by Chloe Lauter

Tillinghast (2026), by Clare Cavenagh

Trad Wife (2026), by Sarah Langan

Babylon, South Dakota (2026), by Tom Lin

The Rouse (2026), by China Mieville

Desert Radio (2026), by Pamela Durgin

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Part Two of my Scaredy Boy special, in which I quiz my friends in fear, Damo, Sean and To—AKA the Scaredy Boys themselves—about what they’ve seen and suffered through in their podcasting mission to conquer horror movies.

We talk number one examples of dread, disgust and despair. We pick our favourite horror villains. We talk about the films we’ll never watch again and those we’re too scared to watch in the first place.

Consider this a viewing guide for the brave and the frightened alike.

Enjoy!

Support Talking Scared and get become a Patreon subscriber.

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Would you rather die or live on and on and on and on…

That’s one of the questions at the heart of Tom Lin’s Babylon, South Dakota. It’s a novel about a Chinese family who inherit an American farm, and whose lives are forever changed when the US military build strange missile silos on their land. It’s weird, inexplicable, deep, epic, sad and joyful and all the other things that make a good book.

But it’s also dark. It prompts questions that might keep you awake in the warm depths of the summer night. And Tom and I talk about all of it.

Enjoy.

Other books mentioned:

• The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu (2021), by Tom Lin
• “On Exactitude in Science” (1947), by Jorge Luis Borges
• “The Library of Babel,” (1941), by Jorge Luis Borges
• Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1990), by James Tiptree Jr.
• End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse and the Unmaking of America (2026), by Chris Jennings

Support Talking Scared on Patreon

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