2010 Stoker Award Nominee for Superior Achievement in an Anthology
2010 Black Quill Award Nominee
"Ghosts of New York" Nebula Award Nominee
"The Days of Flaming Motorcycles" WSFA Nominee

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 heaven—if there is a heaven to enter when all is said and done.

Horror’s top authors and promising newcomers whisper tales that creep through the mists at night to rattle your soul. Step beyond salvation and damnation with thirty stories and poems that reveal the darkness beneath belief. Place your faith in that darkness; it’s always there, just beyond the light.

Table of Contents:
Introduction by Maurice Broaddus
"The Story of Belief-Non” by Linda D. Addison (poem)
“Ghosts of New York” by Jennifer Pelland
“I Sing a New Psalm” by Brian Keene
“He Who Would Not Bow” by Wrath James White
“Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch’s Damnation” by Douglas F. Warrick
“Go and Tell It on the Mountain” by Kyle S. Johnson
“Different from Other Nights” by Eliyanna Kaiser
“Lilith” by Rain Graves (poem)
“The Last Words of Dutch Schultz Jesus Christ” by Nick Mamatas
“To the Jerusalem Crater” by Lavie Tidhar
“Chimeras & Grotesqueries” by Matt Cardin
“You Dream” by Ekaterina Sedia
“Mother Urban’s Booke of Dayes” by Jay Lake
“The Mad Eyes of the Heron King” by Richard Dansky
“Paint Box, Puzzle Box” by D.T. Friedman
“A Loss For Words” by J. C. Hay
“Scrawl” by Tom Piccirilli
“C{her}ry Carvings” by Jennifer Baumgartner (poem)
“Good Enough” by Kelli Dunlap
“First Communions” by Geoffrey Girard
“The God of Last Moments” by Alethea Kontis
“Ring Road” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“The Unremembered” by Chesya Burke
“Desperata” by Lon Prater (poem)
“The Choir” by Lucien Soulban
“Days of Flaming Motorcycles” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Miz Ruthie Pays Her Respects” by Lucy A. Snyder
“Paranoia” by Kurt Dinan (poem)
“Hush” by Kelly Barnhill
“Sandboys” by Richard Wright
“For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer” by Gary A. Braunbeck

Reviews:

• 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.
  —Publishers Weekly (May, 2010)
• 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.
  --Booklist (May, 2010)
• “Faith. Light and dark. Terrible beauty and mind-shattering horror. It’s all here, in what’s sure to be one of the year’s best anthologies.”
  —Shroud Magazine
• "Kudos to editors Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon and to publisher Jason Sizemore of Apex Books for producing a collection that will amaze, offend, astound, and enthrall readers."
  --Horror-Web.com
• "There aren’t really any losers here, and if you’ve never gotten around to reading any of Apex’s collections, this would be a great place to start. "
  --Suvudu.com

Blurbs:

• “A remarkable collection, bursting at the seams with thought-provoking ideas and shattering visions.”
  —Brandon Massey, award-winning author of Dark Corner and Don’t Ever Tell
• “A moving examination of the spirit. Nobody does faith like the horror genre, and this diverse collection is the new bible of the bizarre. Heaven and hell never looked so scary.”
  —Scott Nicholson, author of The Red Church

Book Trailer:

Cover Artist:
Edith Walter

Product Details:
Trade Paperback
360 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0982159682
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches

About the Editors:

Maurice Broaddus is the author of the Knights of Breton Court series as well as the novellas Orgy of Souls (co-written with Wrath James White) and Devil’s Marionette. He has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, from Weird Tales to the Dark Dreams series to Apex Magazine. He can be found on the web at www.mauricebroaddus.com.

Jerry Gordon is leading at least one life too many. As a full-time author, grad student, web programmer, and editor, he lacks the time to write a witty bio, but assures you that if you keep drinking, he’ll get funnier. In addition to co-editing Dark Faith and Last Rites, he’s published stories with Apex Magazine, Indie Review, and the Midnight Diner. He recently finished his first novel, Severed Dreams, and can be found blurring genre lines at www.jerrygordon.net.