Put the Thesaurus Down!

As I mentioned in a previous post one of the books I'm reading, Fight for the Abyss, has writing of a...lesser quality. But I couldn't quite put my finger on what or why. The story was interesting enough (but again, not as interesting as the previous book in the series) but the actual words on the page seemed poorly chosen and poorly put together. Sometimes things seemed to be repeated more than was necessary. Or really odd words were used to describe thing. The series often uses interesting and archaic words in place of everyday things to give the world a certain feeling. But the author seems to be having trouble with that in this particular book.

I finally came across a passage that nearly put me over the edge. This passage illuminated (pun intended...you'll see in a second) a lot of what I didn't like about the book.

Let me set the scene. A small, rag-tag group of futuristic warriors (Space Marines) and the crew of an old and now partially disabled space vessel are chasing after a mammoth enemy ship filled with the traitorous former brothers-in-arms of the aforementioned Space Marines. This big, evil ship is set on destroying the home world of the good guys. In the middle of a pitched battle the author gives us this description as the leader of the Space Marines steps into the bridge of his ship:

Drenched in the crimson gloom from vermillion alert status, the bridge looked bloody in the half-light. 

So you're saying the room was red, huh?

And are you trying to tell me that in the grim darkness of the 31st millennium that humans have become so advanced that they shy away from mundane things like "red alert" and prefer the far more futuristic "vermillion alert?" "Vermillion alert?" I had to read the sentence again and then put the book down while I let out a small chuckle.

Let me tell you, I've written my share of overly worked prose. I can see myself scribbling on a page with the thesaurus at my side. Whenever a word seemed a little boring I'd pop over to the thesaurus to see if I could make it "better." But then again, I'm not what you'd call a "writer", and certainly not a "published author." I'm a hack with a blog.

And don't get me wrong, I love a good turn of phrase littered with flowery adjectives. Not everything has to be Ernest Hemingway. But it has to be done right. Look back at my recently read list. Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edward Gibbon knew how to drip a little extra spice on a sentence. But not everyone can do what those authors did, at least not successfully. And most people should know that. I'm also a little mystified that the editors let this stuff through. Of course, it is in the middle of a very popular SciFi series. It isn't like the sales numbers were in doubt. Why spend the extra time to do it right?

Anyway, I'm almost done with this one, which is kind of a relief. I can't wait to move to the next book in the hopes that it will be much better. One nice thing about this series is that it is definitely easy and light reading.