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Hyperbole? Perhaps. But Guardian of the Zercons by Brian Jeffrey Voigt is uniquely bad.

Welcome to my new Monday installment focusing on really bad writing.

Confession: I haven’t read the entire novel. I don’t know how one could and remain sane. Random sampling of pages is really enough to drive one quite mad. Heck, the “press release” is enough.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the opening line:

There was a chill in the air, which might have seemed natural if this were any normal world, but seeing as it isn’t, it’s not.

Still with me? Good. How about some more gems from that first paragraph:

You be your bottom delco not a single Plebar could remember when the trading of that precious metal became such an important part of their lives. Almost overnight the golden treasures became an institution. […] Within those glowing flecks you could loose yourself - a delco for you thoughts, as the saying goes.

Wow, two golden chestnuts in one paragraph. This also points to one of the biggest problems with this novel: making up names for things. This is actually one of the toughest things about writing fantasy/science fiction. Authors want to make it “different” from the world we know, but go to silly lengths to accomplish it. For example, if a “delco” is gold, why not just call it gold? Later in the novel, Voigt introduces the Zigfrieds which are “furry cat-like creatures.” (I’m guessing that they’re white.)

One thing you didn’t get from this little introduction to the novel is Voigt’s truly unique us of punctuation, especially the ellipse. Used properly, an ellipse is three dots (…) or, if ending a sentence, a full stop plus three dots (. …). Voigt approaches the ellipse in a much more free-formed way, using anything from three to seven periods with random spacing. He also tosses them in at seemingly random intervals. Most often, from what I gather, he interjects them as a type of pause, which would be an acceptable use.

I will include more stellar moments in future installments of Monday’s Worst Writing — just wait until we get to the closing line. Until then.

Copy corrected Sept. 6, 2005