OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Sal(inee) Goldenberg is a multimedia artist and writer living in Washington D.C. She paints, draws comics, and plays guitar in a punk rock band. Before freelancing, the bi-chaotic elder-millennial worked at Bethesda Softworks, producing narrative trailers on IPs like Skyrim, Fallout and Dishonored. Now she makes wholesome social videos for Minecraft. She loves cooking, (especially Thai family recipes,) playing video games, and lowlevel hustlin’.

 

FORMAT/INFO: The Last Phi Hunter will be published April 9th, 2024 by Angry Robot Books. It is 384 pages long and told in third person from multiple POVs, including Ex. It will be available in paperback and ebook forms.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Ex has hunted monsters and ghosts all over the kingdom, but there is one prey he hasn't yet killed: a true demon. He's spent months tracking one that the rest of his hunter brethren have dismissed as a myth, and now he's finally discovered where the demon will appear in a few short days. But money is tight, so Ex agrees to escort a pregnant young woman through a ghost-infested forest to make a few coin along the way to the demon's lair. Unfortunately for Ex, that woman turns out to be the favored consort of the crown prince, and royal agents will stop at nothing to bring her back to the palace. With monsters on one side and assassins on the other, can Ex protect the woman he's falling for and still kill the demon that will bring him the glory he craves?

The Last Phi Hunter is a rich tapestry of monsters from Thai folklore, perfect for those looking for a Witcher-esque story. Ex is a phi hunter, a killer of the deadly creatures formed from reincarnated spirits being punished for sins in their previous life. To do so, he frequently opens his sight to the Everpresent, the vibrant spirit world that exists as a layer on top of the mortal one. I loved the imagery, the ritual, the scales of karma, the spirits rooted in Thai stories that I was unfamiliar with. They were creepy and macabre and kept me pulled into the story, waiting to see what terrifying creature lurked around the corner.

This is also a story full of the melancholy of a dying age. Ex is the youngest phi hunter, but there is also fear that he might be the last. Humans have increasingly pushed into the wilds, cutting down sacred lands and dismissing rituals as superstition. And as the old ways fall out of favor, the phi hunters are both less in demand and are viewed with hostile suspicion for the "dark magics" they supposedly practice. The conflict between progress and tradition haunts the background of the story as Ex struggles to get by in a profession that is often needed but rarely respected.

Where the story fell apart a bit for me is the character of Ex himself. He's full of the brash incompetence that marks the young, always confidently running into situations only to realize he's woefully unprepared. As someone who tends to prefer seasoned veterans as main characters, this frequent tendency to get himself into trouble began to wear over the course of the story. It also made it a bit harder to believe his prowess when he DID get those big kills, especially as the fights were over so quickly it seemed anti-climactic.

Ex's budding romantic relationship with Arinya also didn't quite work for me. He goes through some understandable whiplash of trying to figure out if she also has feelings for him or if she's just manipulating him for protection, to the point where I as the reader wasn't fully convinced of where Arinya's affections lay. Ex also makes some petty assumptions that rubbed me the wrong way, like telling himself Arinya will be happy to go back to her cushy palace life, despite the fact that her husband is controlling and quite potentially abusive.

CONCLUSION: In the end, however, all of Ex's stupidity couldn't stop me from enjoying the beautiful and horrifying spirit world the author created. If you like tales of hunting monsters in dangerous swamps and forests, where Guardian spirits may help or hinder you depending on their mood that day and ghosts offer you tempting but dangerous deals, you should pick up The Last Phi Hunter.