The destructiveness of passion, both earthly and supernatural, makes cities bleed and souls burn across worlds, through endless time. Experience the spiritual side of the zombie apocalypse in ""The Days of Flaming Motorcycles"" and transcend both hell and nirvana in ""Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch's Damnation."" Look into ""The Mad Eyes of the Heron King"" to find the beautiful brutality written in the moment of epiphany or ""Go and Tell it On the Mountain,"" where Jesus Christ awaits your last plea to enter heavenif there is a heaven to enter when all is said and done.
Dark Faith
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Although the horror genre naturally lends itself to up close and personal examination of good and very nasty evil, little writing in that genre is faith inflected. This anthology addresses that gap. "Faith" is used loosely and expansively in this collection of short tales that offers something for lots of different tastes-slasher, fairy tale, end times, ghost story-as well as religion. "Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch's Damnation," by Douglas F. Warrick, is a meditation on enlightenment as cagey as any Zen master's teaching. "Different from Other Nights" by Eliyanna Kaiser offers a knife twist on the Passover celebration. Although the anthology is uneven, as collections often can be, the very best, like Gary A. Braunbeck's "For My Next Trick I'll Need a Volunteer," resonate in the mind long afterward, with no guts or gore. And while Cathrynne M. Valente's "The Days of Flaming Motorcycles" is a wicked clever zombie tale set in Augusta, Maine, readers may wonder where zombie Jesus is when we need him.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
What questions would you ask Jesus if he returned on the eve of an apocalypse and granted every surviving human a personal audience? If a Zen Buddhist were consigned to Hell, would he suffer the torments of the damned or remain blissfully serene? These are some of the questions explored in this distinctive collection focusing on philosophical conundrums presented by religious faith. Thirty-one tales and poems from some of the horror genre’s most talented writers cover quite a spectrum of inquiry. Jennifer Pelland’s “Ghosts of New York” finds the World Trade Center jumpers on 9/11 endlessly reliving their terrifying plummets to earth. An autistic girl who becomes miraculously lucid in Chesya Burke’s “The Unremembered” spurns the priest who mistakes her miracle for a Christian one. A saintly boy found murdered in Ekatarina Sedia’s “You Dream” haunts a woman’s nightmares. While the overall quality is mixed, and the selections lean heavily on shock value rather than subtlety, there are enough provocative scenarios here to provide hours of faith-challenging entertainment. --Carl Hays
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Jaym Gates
Format:Paperback
The argument that 'genre-fiction is merely escapism' can be firmly put to rest with the debut of Dark Faith. It is real, present, in your face and not letting the reader go anywhere. Thirty-one stories of love and loss, faith, questions, anger, tests. This is horror as it should be: subtle one moment, punching the lights out the next. Brutal and delicate both.
It is dark, certainly. Dark Faith is not an easy read. It requires thought, processing and consideration. The stories do not preach, nor attempt to convert. Faith is examined from many angles and perceptions.
It is a star-studded table of contents. Co-edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, the authors include Tom Piccirilli, Catherynne Valente, Jay Lake, Wrath James Wright, Brian Keene and Linda Addison, to name just a few. With such a varied group of styles and a fairly tight subject, the possibility of staleness is a reasonable suspicion. However, there is not a sign of staleness in this book.
Instead, each author brings a unique voice and outlook to the book. A cohesive whole is formed, yet all the little parts are quite capable of being seen individually. It is not only Christian faith which is explored. The actions of faith are as varied as the believers.
The highlights were hard to pick out. However, a few of the darkest gems stuck with me well after reading.
Douglas Warrick's Gordon Drach and the Art of Zen has a slow, quiet intensity. The character had depth and history, telling a past story without wandering into info dump. And the portrayal of God was unique and memorable.
The first story, Ghosts of New York, tips the reader right off of the cliff. 9/11 and a ghost girl cursed to live the moment of her death over and over again. Eternal punishment for a necessary sin? While it is not a ground-breaking plot, author Jennifer Pelland handled it with a considerable amount of empathy and emotion.
The Choir, by Lucien Soulban is equal parts Llovecraftian horror, Nazi experimentation, and the awful prejudice and persecution suffered by men who dared to be 'perverts'. It is a sympathetic portrayal of men in the most desperate circumstances, and their determination to light a torch for others to follow.
There are a few stories in here that sometimes meander and lose focus here and there, but they are the minority.
At twenty-six stories and a handful of poems, stated by Apex to total over 130,000 words, Dark Faith is a hefty read. Its contents are equally hefty. Allow yourself a few days to read and process. It is worth the time, and many of the stories are well-crafted enough to not only stand up to multiple readings, but to reveal new things with each reading.
The crew at Apex can be proud of themselves with this one, and if its quality is any indication of the majority of Apex's anthologies, I will certainly have them front and center on my reading list from here on out.
It is dark, certainly. Dark Faith is not an easy read. It requires thought, processing and consideration. The stories do not preach, nor attempt to convert. Faith is examined from many angles and perceptions.
It is a star-studded table of contents. Co-edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, the authors include Tom Piccirilli, Catherynne Valente, Jay Lake, Wrath James Wright, Brian Keene and Linda Addison, to name just a few. With such a varied group of styles and a fairly tight subject, the possibility of staleness is a reasonable suspicion. However, there is not a sign of staleness in this book.
Instead, each author brings a unique voice and outlook to the book. A cohesive whole is formed, yet all the little parts are quite capable of being seen individually. It is not only Christian faith which is explored. The actions of faith are as varied as the believers.
The highlights were hard to pick out. However, a few of the darkest gems stuck with me well after reading.
Douglas Warrick's Gordon Drach and the Art of Zen has a slow, quiet intensity. The character had depth and history, telling a past story without wandering into info dump. And the portrayal of God was unique and memorable.
The first story, Ghosts of New York, tips the reader right off of the cliff. 9/11 and a ghost girl cursed to live the moment of her death over and over again. Eternal punishment for a necessary sin? While it is not a ground-breaking plot, author Jennifer Pelland handled it with a considerable amount of empathy and emotion.
The Choir, by Lucien Soulban is equal parts Llovecraftian horror, Nazi experimentation, and the awful prejudice and persecution suffered by men who dared to be 'perverts'. It is a sympathetic portrayal of men in the most desperate circumstances, and their determination to light a torch for others to follow.
There are a few stories in here that sometimes meander and lose focus here and there, but they are the minority.
At twenty-six stories and a handful of poems, stated by Apex to total over 130,000 words, Dark Faith is a hefty read. Its contents are equally hefty. Allow yourself a few days to read and process. It is worth the time, and many of the stories are well-crafted enough to not only stand up to multiple readings, but to reveal new things with each reading.
The crew at Apex can be proud of themselves with this one, and if its quality is any indication of the majority of Apex's anthologies, I will certainly have them front and center on my reading list from here on out.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"Sometimes I think the only way you can tell if something has a soul is if they can still be sad." -'The Days of Flaming Motorcycles' by Catherynne M. Valente, from Dark Faith
That, right there, sums up the tone of Dark Faith, an anthology recently released by Apex. These are not stories to read before bed- they are insidious clusters of words that will keep you up all night.
The collection ranges from the dark and bitter to the wistful, but all the stories have one thing in common- they look at what makes us human and twist it into a flurry of weakness and strength, taking the human condition and churning out things that are so skewed, so painfully true, that it is impossible to look away.
There were some stories that were hard to read, topic matter-wise, in that hard to look in the mirror sort of way, but like with a particularly vicious traffic accident the reader is captured by a morbid sort of fascination that keeps the pages turning. It helps that each story is a gem of word smithing. There are some seriously talented writers in this anthology, and that in itself makes it worth the buy.
It is also one of the more unique anthologies I have hit in awhile. There is definitely a common theme, and in the first few stories seems a bit too pervasive to make anything stand out individually, but as you keep reading, you see that one basic theme mature and mutate off into directions I would never have expected.
It is definitely for those readers who are friendly towards the horror genre, but it was definitely enjoyable for a shameless scifi/fantasy addict such as myself. I have a deep love for the twisted and for stories that have the power to make me wince. That shows such skill on the part of the author, and this anthology definitely abounds with such talent.
That, right there, sums up the tone of Dark Faith, an anthology recently released by Apex. These are not stories to read before bed- they are insidious clusters of words that will keep you up all night.
The collection ranges from the dark and bitter to the wistful, but all the stories have one thing in common- they look at what makes us human and twist it into a flurry of weakness and strength, taking the human condition and churning out things that are so skewed, so painfully true, that it is impossible to look away.
There were some stories that were hard to read, topic matter-wise, in that hard to look in the mirror sort of way, but like with a particularly vicious traffic accident the reader is captured by a morbid sort of fascination that keeps the pages turning. It helps that each story is a gem of word smithing. There are some seriously talented writers in this anthology, and that in itself makes it worth the buy.
It is also one of the more unique anthologies I have hit in awhile. There is definitely a common theme, and in the first few stories seems a bit too pervasive to make anything stand out individually, but as you keep reading, you see that one basic theme mature and mutate off into directions I would never have expected.
It is definitely for those readers who are friendly towards the horror genre, but it was definitely enjoyable for a shameless scifi/fantasy addict such as myself. I have a deep love for the twisted and for stories that have the power to make me wince. That shows such skill on the part of the author, and this anthology definitely abounds with such talent.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Wag The Fox
Format:Kindle Edition
Try bringing aspects of religion into your horror writing and see what kind of reaction you get from the God-fearin' folks. Or, you could just ask Maurice Broaddus about it. Maurice, himself a devout Christian, has no qualms in recognizing the darker elements of faith, as well shining a little of that gospel of the terrifying. And considering the caliber of authors he coerced into contributing to this anthology, the guy knows how to strike a balance. It's just kind of funny to hear how such a nice, talented guy gets such strange looks from others when they find out the kinds of stories he writes. We've all been there, I suppose.
Dark Faith amasses thirty-one authors with short stories, and a couple poems, that all deal in one way or another with faith. From that one starting point, each author goes off on their own path, each story following its own north star, as it were. Now, I'm still a guy who doesn't shine towards poetry, so my focus was on the fiction.
Two short stories immediately jumped out at the beginning of the anthology with disparate tones, but equally rending effect. Jennifer Pelland's "Ghosts of New York" is a sad portrait of a woman's afterlife in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. As I recall, Jennifer was a bit hesitant about how this story would be received by readers, given its setting, but I thought it was tragic feat of beauty. Then, there was Brian Keene's "I Sing a New Psalm," with a hard-bitten tone that practically jumps off the page and dares you to hit back.
From there, the anthology carries on with stories like Ekaterin Sedia's "You Dream", a story I liked despite its use of second-person POV which I rarely enjoy; Catherynne M. Valente's "Days of Flaming Motorcycles", which was already a favorite of mine after reading it online in a couple other venues; plus Tom Piccirilli's "Scrawl" and an increasingly creepy stroll through fetishism and self-loathing.
The book is just about the furthest thing you can get from a religious screed designed to convert or dissuade people from God. If you're thinking that, you can knock it off. This anthology is a bit like a confessional, but more like a open-ended prayer uttered to no one god in particular. Whatever ear the song falls on, it is hopefully a friendly one. For an atheist like me, it was kind of nice to see horror and faith meet with a more sophisticated approach than evil priests and generic zealotry posited as villains. What villains there are in this book are ourselves, more or less. Our frailties. And no matter which god you believe in, Westboro Baptists not withstanding, you ought to see that the book may be dark, but it does shed some light on the idea of faith.
With thirty-one stories and poems packed into one book, you are bound to not like all of them, but--by gawd--you should like most of 'em.
There's a Dark Faith 2 in the works, and I think it's set for release sometime in the latter half of 2012, so you can bet that I'll be keeping my eye out for that one when the time comes. I may not be a good little Christian soldier, but I am a satisfied customer.
Dark Faith amasses thirty-one authors with short stories, and a couple poems, that all deal in one way or another with faith. From that one starting point, each author goes off on their own path, each story following its own north star, as it were. Now, I'm still a guy who doesn't shine towards poetry, so my focus was on the fiction.
Two short stories immediately jumped out at the beginning of the anthology with disparate tones, but equally rending effect. Jennifer Pelland's "Ghosts of New York" is a sad portrait of a woman's afterlife in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. As I recall, Jennifer was a bit hesitant about how this story would be received by readers, given its setting, but I thought it was tragic feat of beauty. Then, there was Brian Keene's "I Sing a New Psalm," with a hard-bitten tone that practically jumps off the page and dares you to hit back.
From there, the anthology carries on with stories like Ekaterin Sedia's "You Dream", a story I liked despite its use of second-person POV which I rarely enjoy; Catherynne M. Valente's "Days of Flaming Motorcycles", which was already a favorite of mine after reading it online in a couple other venues; plus Tom Piccirilli's "Scrawl" and an increasingly creepy stroll through fetishism and self-loathing.
The book is just about the furthest thing you can get from a religious screed designed to convert or dissuade people from God. If you're thinking that, you can knock it off. This anthology is a bit like a confessional, but more like a open-ended prayer uttered to no one god in particular. Whatever ear the song falls on, it is hopefully a friendly one. For an atheist like me, it was kind of nice to see horror and faith meet with a more sophisticated approach than evil priests and generic zealotry posited as villains. What villains there are in this book are ourselves, more or less. Our frailties. And no matter which god you believe in, Westboro Baptists not withstanding, you ought to see that the book may be dark, but it does shed some light on the idea of faith.
With thirty-one stories and poems packed into one book, you are bound to not like all of them, but--by gawd--you should like most of 'em.
There's a Dark Faith 2 in the works, and I think it's set for release sometime in the latter half of 2012, so you can bet that I'll be keeping my eye out for that one when the time comes. I may not be a good little Christian soldier, but I am a satisfied customer.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Diverse!
Dark Faith, edited by Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon, is a very strong anthology and contains over thirty stories and poems, all centered around the theme of religion. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Bobbie Metevier
5.0 out of 5 stars
One ballsy book
REVIEWED BY THE FUNKY WEREPIG
What can you say about an anthology that dares to tackle a subject that most would consider taboo? Well, a lot actually. Read more
What can you say about an anthology that dares to tackle a subject that most would consider taboo? Well, a lot actually. Read more
Published on February 13, 2011 by Funky Werepig
5.0 out of 5 stars
Darker Ruminations
It's no secret, I love short stories, at all lengths and in almost all genres. That's why I started the [info]365shortstories community on livejournal, to talk about short stories. Read more
Published on May 21, 2010 by Anthony R. Cardno
5.0 out of 5 stars
Faith - terrible beauty and mind-shattering horror
"Faith". For many it means a belief in the unseen. It can be a driving force behind daily decisions or a nostalgic affectation for appearances only. Read more
Published on May 14, 2010 by Shroud Magazine's Book Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
I have good news, and I have better news...
I recently received a review copy of Dark Faith, an anthology which allows readers to "Step beyond salvation and damnation with thirty stories and poems that reveal the darkness... Read more
Published on May 10, 2010 by Stacy K.
