Lightbreaker

It's noteworthy that the spine of this book labels it as fantasy/horror, not just urban fantasy. There's a disturbingly dark mood to the book--all shadows, corruption, and lost souls--and therefore the gray environment of the Pacific northwest is well-suited to the book. It's also an environment familiar to me, which makes me relate to the book in a personal way.

Lightbreaker moves along fast. So fast, that it sometimes feels like the middle book of a series and not the first book, like it assumed I already knew characters and circumstances. This threw me off at first, but I soon got into the groove. The explanations felt long-winded at times, though the subject matter was interesting, relying heavily on Aleister Crowley, the Book of Thoth, and tarot.

Markham is very much an anti-hero. He feels remote, and that may be a good thing because of the darkness of his character. I wanted to understand him more and that frustrated me at times; by the end, it was clear it was written this way with intent, since Markham is just as frustrated about his own nature and choices.

I got to spend time with the author recently and that also provided me with behind-the-scenes perspective on the series. I would definitely like to read on and see how the books develop. ( )

This is a book I'd like to return to for a re-read, some day. From the author's portrait inside the front cover you'd swear that he's lightweight. Nope, deep, ceremonial magical stuff here, the bloody messy stuff with death, blood and souls here.

It starts when Markham, on the hunt for a woman who injured his soul years ago and left him to pick up the pieces, has a deer cross his path, only this deer has a passenger and that passenger is a human soul. Following the clues brings him to a bigger mess and a much messier plan. And it's all a mess. Somehow he got handed the clues to the solution and with the power that he has the responsibility is his.

It's a dark messy occult novel, the end was vaguely unsatisfying but I do want more. ( )

Well, first of all, I finished this book, so it wasn't all bad, but neither was it all good. It started with some pretty cool magic and "drifter vs. police" of a rather higher caliber than usual, I thought, and I was eager for more. But then the book veered into philosophical discussions of all sorts of mystical mumbo-jumbo (sorry, just not that interested) to an extent that I got the distinct impression the action set-pieces were designed to set us up for another exposure to the author's knowledge of (presumably) "Western magick, Hermetic traditions and shamanism," per the back of the book.

1/3 of the way through the book I was eager to buy the second book that just hit the shelves of my local store, but by the end, I had no real urge to continue on with the series. ( )

Full review located at http://paganbookreviews.com/2009/09/23/lightbreaker-by-mark-teppo/

An urban fantasy novel that is a lot more Hellblazer, Mage and Highlander than it is high heels, hot pants and horizontal vampire mambo. There's even a Watcher society and sword fighting.

A predilection for Heremetic magic, souls and Tarot (and a bit of Crowley) is on display among the superpowered types doing battle beyond the ken of mortals.

Fortunately the extended flights of magical fantasy a la Moore and Promethea are left till towards the end, with a rather more grounded epilogue.

With an atmosphere like this you tend to get a taste for the nasty. There are certainly some parts of this novel that some would call horror.

The author gives a book writing soundtrack at the end, and Fields Of the Nephilim feature prominently, which will give you further idea of the sort of supernatural content you will encounter in Lightbreaker.

There's also gratuitous prophetic abuse of bookshop staff.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/05/lightbreaker-mark-teppo.html ( )