Tom Clancy (in his favorite cosplay sailor suit) sitting in the corner.
I usually like to keep the mood here upbeat and avoid negativity toward other authors. But I just have to pass on two terrible sentences I recently read while skimming through Tom Clancy’s cold-war-turns-hot-war novel Red Storm Rising. Mr. Clancy has amassed a small (?) fortune over the years — so I doubt he’ll take it too personally if a newbie speculative fiction author takes aim at his micro-writing in a bestseller he wrote over twenty years ago.
Bad sentence #1 (Offense Against Fiction: Dialog Tag as Infodump)
“‘Fighter weather,’ agreed Lieutenant Colonel Bill Jeffers, commander of the 57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, the “Black Knights,” most of whose F-15 Eagle interceptors were sitting in the open a bare hundred yards away.”
I don’t think this really needs much in the way of explanation. Surely there’s a more reader-friendly way of conveying all these details about Lt. Col. Jeffers, his “Black Knights,” and their planes besides tacking them on to a frickin’ dialog tag. To me, this sentence is the literary equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so clumsy. Well, except bad sentence #2…
Bad sentence #2: (Offense Against Fiction: Absurd Simile in a Non-Absurdist Text)
“If the Soviets kicked off the war that seemed to be springing from the ground like a new volcano, Kaflavik was as ready as it could be.”
Springing from the ground like a new volcano?? Unless Mr. Clancy is some sort of Dr. Manhattan-like immortal who is able to observe plate tectonics over a stretch of geologic time, he has no way of knowing what it’s like to see a “new volcano” “spring up from the ground.” They ain’t like daffodils, Tom!
And that was just after skimming the book for about ten minutes. Now, those of you who know me might be saying — why the hell is she skimming Tom Clancy?
Well, I’m writing a near-future SF book that includes naval battles. And who knows modern naval stuff better than Clancy? It wasn’t a totally awful idea, you see. There was some point to it. Alas, I’m starting to think that I should go elsewhere for help in seeing a naval battle well-depicted. Maybe an old Horatio Hornblower novel. Or maybe, for my novel, I don’t have to focus quite so much on the battle anyway. At this stage of the game, I’m much more interested in depicting violence as committed by one individual against another. And there’s plenty of that for me to focus on.
Just thought I’d share…
Say, if any of you are interested in posting your own candidates for “worst sentence ever written in the English language,” feel free to use the comments section to do so. Just a word of warning — if you post a sentence, you need to give an explanation about why it sucks. It’s not enough to just point and laugh. Point, explain, and laugh.
Also, I’m not interested in seeing folks pick on up-and-comers. Everyone expects newer authors to need time to develop their craft. I’m more interested in seeing folks exhume truly terrible sentences penned by authors who are established (either critically or commercially). If your comment appears too mean-spirited (in my admittedly-subjective opinion), I won’t approve it.
So let’s see what we can come up with, kiddies. I’m eager to see your nominations. Now hop to it!
