Ghost Ship

Elmore Leonard's third rule on writing is “Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.” This book is an almost perfect example of why that's such a good rule.

This rule, “Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose,” was also violated so much I don't know why the book didn't call the cops.

I hate to say it but “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip” would have resulted in this book not being written.

It's not entirely the author's fault. No one knew who Picard, Riker, and Troi were really going to be when this book was written.