Dark Faith: Devotions and ALL THINGS ME!!!

As the promotional efforts for Dark Faith begin in earnest, Apex Book Company has been running a series of mini-interviews with some of the contributors called Dark Faith: DEVOTIONS. I’ve been loving the responses and want to collect the links to them here. And take a moment to appreciate how much my friends love and respect me…

DEVOTIONS

Alethea Kontis - “The God of Last Moments”

Mary Robinette Kowal – “Ring Road”

D.T. Friedman - “Paint Box, Puzzle Box”

Wrath James White - “He Who Would Not Bow”

Tom Piccirilli - "Scrawl"

Jennifer Pelland - "Ghosts of New York"

Nick Mamatas - “The Last Words of Dutch Schultz Jesus Christ”

Ekaterina Sedia - "You Dream"

Lucy A. Snyder - “Miz Ruthie Pays Her Respects”

Linda D. Addison - "The Story of Non-Belief"

Rain Graves - "Lilith"

Richard Dansky - "The Mad Eyes of the King Heron"

Lavie Tidhar - "To the Jerusalem Crater"

Geoffrey Girard - "First Communions"

Kelli Dunlap - "Good Enough"


Related Posts

Flames Rising - Dark Faith Preview (including my introduction to Dark Faith)

Kelli Owen - "Dark first, Faith second"

Jason Sizemore - "The Ups and Downs of an Anthology"

INTERVIEWS

On my end, I have the unprecedented (in my career thus far) problem (and hopefully this will be a recurring “problem”) of promoting two projects at a time. Thus, the latest bouts of interviews (though King Maker was mentioned in Publishers Weekly all on its own):

Examiner.com - Maurice Broaddus has 'Dark Faith'

Random Musings - Interview with Maurice Broaddus

Innsmouth Free Press - Interview: Maurice Broaddus

Omnivoracious - Jeff Vandermeer - King Maker Maurice Broaddus on the Anthology “Dark Faith”

The Occult Detective - Soul Searching with Maurice Broaddus


AAAAAAAND, reviews of Dark Faith are already rolling in:

REVIEWS
Shroud Magazine

Publisher’s Weekly


P.S.

Rounding out this “All Things Me” post, I’d like to point to two more items:

1) Zoe E. Whitten, hysterically funny writer and tweeter, was wrestling with my novella, Devil’s Marionette in this moving piece.

2) My story “Hootchie Cootchie Man” was listed as an Honorable Mention in Ellen Datlow’s list of notable stories for the year.

Devil’s Marionette Reviews

The Pontifications of Maurice Broaddus

Top horror novels blogs

I have no idea what this means or their criteria, especially since Nick Kaufmann has gotten TWO of these, but now I'm obligated to do something vaguely horror novel related ... so I'll talk about ME!

Just like I did with Orgy of Souls, I will keep an updated list of reviews of Devil’s Marionette as they come in. An early review has stuck with me, however. I normally don’t engage reviews/reviewers as they took the time to read my work and so they are entitled to whatever opinion they have. But this one really got under my skin (in a good way!). I think because it mirrors my experience when writing the novella:

By Michele Lee from the Book Love site [4 out of 5 stars from the Amazon site]

I have a mental list of movies I've seen, and I don't regret seeing them, but I never want to see them again. What Dreams May Come, Philadelphia, A.I and Funny Games all have their places on this list. Slowly I'm forming a list of books that I've enjoyed and would recommend, but never I want to read again. Devil's Marionette by Maurice Broaddus is definitely edging its way onto this list.

There's nothing technically wrong with this novella about the cast of a black skit show/sitcom descending into madness. The characters are raw, pain-filled and clear and the story itself is unfurled with the casual unstopablility of an oncoming freight train.

But there's a weight here that threatens to crush the reader as well as the characters.
Broaddus's novella starts right at the end of things and offers little in the way of background, or explanation, instead focusing on each individual breakdown of an otherwise talented and intelligent black cast. The crew aren't being crushed by the white network bigwig (despite his efforts at dominating them), though, it's their own connection to parasitic performers of the past that pulls them into more than personal darkness. Here it feels like the odds are so astoundingly set against them that defying the curse of the black performer is like trying to defy the laws of physics.

Yet despite this immersive, and painfully open experience of being each character as hundreds of years of hatred and racism crushes down on them, the reader is left with the same feeling as someone who witnesses something beautiful or terribly in a quiet woods. It's almost as if this pain is clear and known, but we are not supposed to speak of it, or even admit that we know it's there.

The aura or spirit of this book far out shadows the actual story within the pages. It's left me feeling not thrilled, or entertained, but uneasy, a perfect tone for a horror novella to strike, but one not that makes experiencing it an entirely pleasant experience.

***
-The RawSistaz Review

DEVIL’S MARIONETTE

Death comes for the cast and crew of the hit comedy TV Show Chocolate City, impacting not only their personal lives but the prospect of their show’s continued success. As each member sinks into their own past, and the spirits of those that came before, the tragedies continue.

Maurice Broaddus weaves a tale of intimate nightmare and dark discovery in a compelling exploration of humanity’s relation not only to his own mind and soul, but also to the ghosts of days gone by—personal and ancient.

When your terror comes to claim you, who will it be?

Nobody.

"There are fewer greater pleasures in a reader's life than witnessing a writer whose work they have enjoyed reached a new plateau in their storytelling skills, and such is the case here; with The Devil's Marionette, Maurice Broaddus comes into his own as a writer of dark fiction. It is the brilliance we've all been waiting for, and Broaddus delivers in a voice that both whispers and roars and cannot be ignored." -- Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck, author of Mr. Hands, Destinations Unknown, and Coffin County

Announcing Devil's Marionette, a limited edition novella by Maurice Broaddus, available now from Shroud Publishing.

It started with a stamp.


As with most things with me, this led to a blog. You see, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. It was an image that spoke not only to a history of how black people were seen, but to attitudes that are all to present today. The ideas, and outrage, associated with this began percolating in the back of my head.

“You can’t consider the history of “racial masking” – or the history of American show business – without talking about Bert Williams.” – David Mills


I ran across an image of Bert Williams in full make up. The burnt cork black face that was a part of his act. A black man who performed in black face. It was a powerful image, this proud man, a sad clown. In one picture, the image managed to capture the dehumanizing aspect of racism and the sacrifice required to muddle through its treacherous waters.

And the responsibility of the artist.

You see, as a black artist, one of the things I struggle with is my responsibility to not perpetuate negative images of my community. However, I have to balance that against being true to my craft. What would you do, what would you sacrifice, to be able to do what you are passionate about? Because at the time, I was seeing some absolute garbage hit the television airwaves and coming out on the big screens which amounted to little more than cooning for a mass audience. And I was angry. Because all black artists should be haunted by the specter of Bert Williams and his dilemma of sacrificing his personal dignity in pursuit of the art he loved so much.

So I raged some more and it became a novella.

Gary Braunbeck seemed to like it. I hope you do too.