“Breath of Oblivion”: Maurice Broaddus on world-building from a different perspective

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Afrofuturist and author Maurice Broaddus stops by to talk about Book 2 of his “Astra Black” series, Breath of Oblivion, amongst other projects.

He talks about the origins of the series, and approaching world-building from an afrofuturist perspective, and finding all the right breadcrumbs spread across all the short stories that led up to the foundation for this world. We also talk about other adaptation that broaden the presentation of the world of “Astra Black” (the appeal of a visual adaptation in animated or graphic novel format is an exciting possibility to me!)

Maurice then talks about possible event and character spinoff stories, and surprise surprise, we already have a story of Itoro!

Listen to the short story “Itoro fe Queen” over at Escape Pod: Escape Pod 904: Itoro fe Queen

He also talks about the challenges of being a librarian in modern America, of balancing student curiosity, freedom of education and the looming threat of book bans and worse, and the dangers of falling too far down the rabbit hole of manga. And yes, of course we talked comics.

The Jazz of Physics is just one of the references, and we look forward to Book 3, A City Dreaming, and the new short story anthology based on Stephen King’s The Stand! The new anthology is The End of the World As We Know It, and will be out in August 2025.