More Enterprise: book edition

I'm reading the book series that rewrites the final episode of the series. I'm on the second book (which apparently explains the history behind the Kobayashi Maru by the title). Anyway, the plot is a little on the ridiculous side, but entertaining enough to keep reading, if only to see how much stupider it can get.

The writing though... so many facepalms. I guess I can thank the writer/editor in me for noticing all the ploblems with the "style" of writing.

The first thing I want to say is that they need to take away these guys' thesaurus. I mean seriously. Some of the sentences (which are always overly long) are hilarious. They go out of their way to use every synonym in the book. An example I just read that made me laugh out loud:

The slow trickle of passerby inexorably slowed further, dying off entirely as the yellow Romulan sun finally completed its long horizonward arc, its present low angle giving it the hue of human blood. Trip paused to take in the spectacle of the bloated, ruddy orb as it settled behind the phalanx of centuries-old structures that comprised the squat Old City skyline. Caught between the waning rays and lengthening shadows, the venerable illuminated spires of the kilometers-distant Hall of State rose belligerently, war pikes poised over the Romulan capital, the anthracite-black waters of the Apnex Sea at their backs. (that was all three sentences--also "ruddy orb")

It goes on and on like that, to the point of reducing me to giggles even during the most dramatic parts. They use "inexorably" and "venerable" so often it takes their punch away. The writing style is just... my fiction instructors would have smacked me upside the head for writing like that. It's like they go out of their way to not use the most common, simplest word possible. Variety is great, but when you start picking out synonyms that are rarely used outside of academia, you start to sound like an idiot. At least their consistent throughout the books--every chapter is like that no matter which POV they are from. *shakes head*

They seem to get the dialogue okay for each character. At least when I read it I can hear the actor's voice and imagine that the character would actually say something like that. That's good. But there are times where they seem to get the characters completely wrong. Their interpretation of T'Pol is driving me nuts. Yes, she's a Vulcan, but it was established on the show that she has difficulty keeping her emotions in check, especially when it comes to Trip and Archer. She's not as standoffish as most Vulcans especially with her crewmates, yet they're writing her like a frigid ice queen that barely blinks when she thinks Trip is killed. The writing style doesn't help.

Oh, on the topic of the first book. It came out about two years after the show ended, so of course they need to add a little info to refresh memories or so that the plot makes sense. But the way it was done was more a headdesk moment for me. There were literal paragraphs of very long, complex sentences that recapped whole episodes in the driest possible language. And sometimes they were thrown into the story at the dumbest points, breaking up the flow.

And if they use the word "sanguine" one more time I'm going to shoot myself.

The writing style just doesn't lend well to a sci-fi adventure novel--it slows the pace way down and puts large chunks of text between the dialogue of a conversation that should take place in a matter of minutes (instead stretching it over two pages). If I had been editing this, my head probably would have exploded 1/3 of the way into book one. I'd also be out of red ink. Way too many adjectives and adverbs.

The one thing I can say is that they don't head-hop. Each scene has a POV character (which switches depending on the plot), but they keep it close 3rd--only what the character knows is revealed, and they stick with it throughout the scene.

Of course, I wouldn't have kept it so formal if I'd written it. I'm good with jumping through multiple POV characters as long as they are kept separate, but I prefer each one to have its own voice.

Still, I'm curious to see where this is going. I'll probably come back to report on some of the more ridiculous sentences I find. Which might turn out to be fairly often.

EDIT: Another fun sentence from the chapter three in Kobayashi Maru where they sum up T'Pol's backstory from the show and the last book:

Thanks to Trip's protracted absence, her memories of their brief time together had become as irrepressible as they were bittersweet. And the fact that the last year had brought her more than enough reason to grieve apart from Trip's departure hadn't helped; she had lost her mother, T'Les, during a raid against a Syrrannite sect at Vulcan's Takarath Sanctuary, then had faced the death of Elizabeth. It didn't matter that her infant offspring had been a cloned hybrid created with her and Tucker's DNA by the rogue geneticists of Terra Prime separatist movement; little Elizabeth had nevertheless been their child. And now both T'Les and Elizabeth were interred beneath the broiling sands of Vulcan, on the grounds of the rebuilt sanctuary.

Holy infodump, Batman.

Way to reduce some of the most emotionally traumatizing events of her life into the most boring, emotionless paragraph ever. It continues on describing the history of T'Pol and Trip and how T'Pol "feels" about things. Except you can't really tell how she feels because the writing is so formal and dry. I imagine T'Pol would be a lot less stoic on the inside and more worried about Trip.

These paragraphs pop up everywhere, sometimes for no real reason, because the events being recapped happened just fifty pages earlier in the same book. Really, guys, we didn't forget what chapter two said when we're on chapter twelve.