L is for The Last Rakosh by F. Paul Wilson

The Last Rakosh

Amazon Summary:

Repairman Jack finds himself at a traveling carnival. During a look through the freak show, he comes across what he believed to be extinct: a Rakosh. Or is it? Jack thought he'd exterminated the vicious creatures. But now, somehow, one appears to have survived. "The Last Rakosh" has all the thrills of a Repairman Jack tale, but shows another side of Jack as he finds himself feeling sympathy for the trapped creature that once tried to kill him.

My Review:

I enjoyed The Last Rakosh. It was interesting and made me want to read the book it's a companion piece to, The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium.  Even though I want to read more stories involving the characters and their world the novelette was quite a satisfying story on it's own. 

I liked the characters. I liked the world the author created. I also liked the work the author put into the detail of the descriptions of the locations. All of it combined made me want to keep reading. 

The issues I had were personal ones involving  the author's writing style.  The first was something that I noticed more towards the end during Jack's confrontation with the Rakosh.  The author shortened sentences into fragments, dropping the noun/pronoun.  I don't see this style a lot, but I do see it. It's just something that bothers me. The reviewer/beta reader in me reads it and it throws me out of the story because I think it's a grammatical or printing error.

The other issue I had was that there are lines that are obviously thoughts of the main character in their own voice. But unfortunately they aren't italicized or in a different font. I've asked a few authors about this in the past because I wasn't sure if it was a formatting issue or not. They've told me that sometimes publishers prefer to not use italics or another way of differentiating the characters private thoughts. 

I don't think either of these two things are anything to hold against the author or the story. Despite these two things I still want to read more of the authors work, especially any related to this novelette. 

If you haven't read anything by Wilson I definitely recommend picking up The Last Rakosh. It is a great way to experience the authors writing without committing to a larger work. If you already have read his work I think you would definitely want to pick it up so you could enjoy delving into more of his characters lives and stories.

This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. 

Click here to find out more and to visit the other blogs participating in the challenge.