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marktimmony's review
4.0
This debut from Mark Teppo is a dark urban fantasy novel with the gritty, realistic feel that is more often found in noir mysteries than an urban fantasy setting. It carves a very solid niche for itself against the likes of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden and Simon R Green’s Nightside series. And if that isn’t enough, this book has no vampires, werewolves or fairies thrown into the mix.
Landis Markham is our hero, or rather antihero, what with his ‘take no
prisoners’ style of getting things done. He is a somewhat ‘grey man’ in that he’s an outsider, a lone wolf. His
unconventional and violent introduction to the world of magick (yes, we are using a ‘k’ in this book) sends him on a round-the-world
journey of magickal schooling in a desperate quest to discover what
happened to him. We are thrust into his story as he returns to Seattle
to find Katarina, the woman who ripped his soul out of his body 10
years ago. In his search, he comes across a deer that is possessed
of a human soul. Trying to remove the soul from the dying deer, he
learns it has encountered Kat recently. He chases the fleeing soul,
determined to find out everything it knows. Forced to work with a
suspended police detective, he hunts a group of local practitioners
engaged in the dangerous art of body jumping.
Loosely inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost, Teppo uses broad,
well-defined strokes to build the alternate modern world that his
characters inhabit very effectively. Drawing on a huge library of
occultist mythology, he presents a story that brilliantly blends
Hermeticism, Alchemy, Shamanism and the Western Mystery
Tradition, creating a solid and original magick system. Aleister
Crowley, along with tarot symbolism, are both thrown in for good
measure, grounding the story in believable philosophy. Milton’s
influence is unmistakeable, and actually quite welcome. But rather
than just transposing the mythologies and creating a story that is
allegory, Teppo introduces issues of modern society into the mix.
Ideas of Heaven and Hell are revamped into corporeal locations,
forced to co-exist as the lines between good and evil are blurred
offering a solid ground for empathy than archetypal stereotypes.
Teppo is a master at integration; he uses a lot of ideas, but only
taking enough of their core tenants and their ‘feeling’ to make
them work. He then spices them up with urban fantasy traditions
– weaving a tale that kept my interest to the exclusion of all else for
two days.
Landis Markham is our hero, or rather antihero, what with his ‘take no
prisoners’ style of getting things done. He is a somewhat ‘grey man’ in that he’s an outsider, a lone wolf. His
unconventional and violent introduction to the world of magick (yes, we are using a ‘k’ in this book) sends him on a round-the-world
journey of magickal schooling in a desperate quest to discover what
happened to him. We are thrust into his story as he returns to Seattle
to find Katarina, the woman who ripped his soul out of his body 10
years ago. In his search, he comes across a deer that is possessed
of a human soul. Trying to remove the soul from the dying deer, he
learns it has encountered Kat recently. He chases the fleeing soul,
determined to find out everything it knows. Forced to work with a
suspended police detective, he hunts a group of local practitioners
engaged in the dangerous art of body jumping.
Loosely inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost, Teppo uses broad,
well-defined strokes to build the alternate modern world that his
characters inhabit very effectively. Drawing on a huge library of
occultist mythology, he presents a story that brilliantly blends
Hermeticism, Alchemy, Shamanism and the Western Mystery
Tradition, creating a solid and original magick system. Aleister
Crowley, along with tarot symbolism, are both thrown in for good
measure, grounding the story in believable philosophy. Milton’s
influence is unmistakeable, and actually quite welcome. But rather
than just transposing the mythologies and creating a story that is
allegory, Teppo introduces issues of modern society into the mix.
Ideas of Heaven and Hell are revamped into corporeal locations,
forced to co-exist as the lines between good and evil are blurred
offering a solid ground for empathy than archetypal stereotypes.
Teppo is a master at integration; he uses a lot of ideas, but only
taking enough of their core tenants and their ‘feeling’ to make
them work. He then spices them up with urban fantasy traditions
– weaving a tale that kept my interest to the exclusion of all else for
two days.
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