I’ve read some pretty good books so far in 2024.
I’ve revisited old classics, and realized some new favorites. I’ve learned some (Russian) history through cooking, and gotten reinspired to write with some study of the craft of fiction. I’ve read up on some more modern issues, and inexpertly judged the award-worthy-ness of writers far better than myself.
But what I hadn’t yet done, was just relax and fall face first into a book.
The Last Phi Hunter by Salinee Goldenberg was the perfect book for finally doing so.
It’s packed with a lot of my usual favorite story elements — deep/intricate mythology based worldbuilding, dynamic characters, humor, and plenty of action — but also other elements which I don’t usually mention in my reviews like a genuinely fun road trip / forced proximity romance.
I think the original way I heard the story pitched was something like The Witcher with Thai mythology (a great pitch), but after reading the book, the comparison feels somewhat reductive. The MC, Ex, shares some striking resemblances to our favorite legendary monster-slaying grumpy guy (solitary life, monster slaying, occasional white hair), but in many ways, they couldn’t be more different (go read it to find out lol).
And while reading, I actually found myself thinking more about David Mogo Godhunter. It may just be that the protagonists of both stories wield a chain blade, but I think that’s probably not where the comparisons end. While David Mogo hunts gods, and Ex hunts monsters, I would argue that the inclusion of the Devas in The Last Phi Hunter positions the book more in the same genre as David Mogo Godhunter (aka Godpunk) than whatever genre people are claiming for The Witcher this week (Low Fantasy? Sword and Sorcery?)
As useful as genre is in hedging your bets and narrowing down the vast scope of possible books from which to pick, it isn’t ultimately what makes you enjoy a book. What makes you enjoy a book is the writing itself, and the ideas (and challenges) contained within.
In terms of writing and prose, Sal shows herself to be by turns practical and poetic. While generally written in a sort of straightforward and modern language, any keeping an eye out for more aesthetic passages will still have plenty to enjoy. The following example stood out to me as having particular depth:
“First came a point of light in an eternal void. It twitched, then expanded into a line. Ex had the sense he could wait there, a story stopped mid sentence, while the book remained unwritten, with enough pages and ink to fill it.” – pg 304
Somehow I can feel that there are many meanings here, both in what is literally happening to Ex at this moment within the book, and also (perhaps) as sort of meta commentary about the creation of the story too.
Another line which I enjoyed:
“Still in a dream, Ex flexed his fingers staring down at a tiny, baby Shar-Ala, gnawing at him with a grotesque, yet oddly cute grin. With a muffled cry he jerked away and startled awake.” – pg 294
I love this line because I think it captures the reality of dreaming (that’s an album name if I ever heard one) with all its odd details and conflicting pieces which seem perfectly normal during the dream but make no sense upon waking. In most fantasy stories, dreams are heavy with symbolism and often foreshadowing, and while this dream may have some of that, it seems a bit less mystical to me: Ex is trying to process some stuff and (as in real life) it’s not coming together in a neat and tidy way.
The last bit of prose I’ll talk about is a bit too long to quote. It’s a whole chapter really, in which Ex has a kind of out-of-body experience. There was so much cool stuff packed into this scene but what I feel like I loved most was just how unabashedly fantastical it was. Imagination turned up to eleven.
I found this quote at Fantasy Hive, in which the author describes her influences for the book and the approach she’s seeking in her prose (she’s referencing Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five):
“All that, and it was really easy to read. I’d been self-conscious about seeing that type of feedback on critiques of my own writing. But “accessible” doesn’t mean “dumbed down.” It means a novel makes no presumptions on who their reader is or how far they got in college. You can still write beautiful, meaningful stories for adults at a fourth grade reading level.”
Accessible, beautiful, meaningful . . . It’s exactly what’s she’s done.
I mentioned challenges also, and this book has a few which encourage the reader to think a little harder on certain subjects and themes. Celeste over at A Literary Escape brings one issue to bear in her review of The Last Phi Hunter, namely that one of the main characters — as Celeste writes it — becomes “Unpregnant”.
This is certainly unusual, even in a fantasy setting, but I think there is more going on here than just convenience and not wanting to deal with the impracticalities of writing a pregnant action hero (although it can clearly be done, who can forget the utterly savage opening of Episode 7 of Wheel of Time: The Dark Along The Ways).
It’s worth noting, pausing pregnancy to wait for better conditions for birth is something that happens in 130 kinds of mammals in nature (from bears to badgers, (another great album name)).
(Why is this something I knew even before finding a link? lol)
But perhaps more worth noting is the kind of power this option gives the women of this world. I think its inclusion has important things to say about our own.
And this is what great books do. They get us talking. I’m finding more and more that skilled and savvy authors (and perhaps even more skilled and savvy editors) leave these rough edges in. They don’t tuck in the corners (or sometimes even make the bed), because the interesting things are the ones that don’t always meet our expectations. The ones that, whether we share the POV of the work or not, allow us to discuss the issue with others, and make a decision for ourselves.
Give The Last Phi Hunter A Read?
You betchya! This post ended up being way longer than I anticipated, but I think that only serves to prove that there is quite a lot to this story which is worth your time.
Pitched as a kind of “Witcher with Thai Monsters and Mythology” I actually found myself comparing the book to others in the ‘godpunk’ genre, as opposed to Low Fantasy, or Sword and Sorcery. The novel’s prose shine, managing to be both easily read and enjoyed, but not “dumbed down” or simple. Sections which stood out to me were its realistically bizarre dream sequences and Miyazaki-like trances which were imaginative and just plain fun to read.
Finally, the book has some things to say as well, with messaging around body autonomy and choice.
I may have thought this was just a fun book about falling in love and hunting monsters, but I’m happy to report it ended up being so much more!
That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this one yet? Thoughts? What was your favorite Phi? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
alligators and aneurysms! 