That’s especially strange, as no local I know calls it anything but “Sierra.” Unless he is, in fact, a corporate sponsor. 
As an aside: how does everybody feel about “shrugged”? Almost every book I read overuses shrugged to the point of distraction. I can’t remember the last time I’ve shrugged.
Perhaps he shouldn’t could but he has written a few prose novels. I offer you comic book writer Chris Claremont.
Claremont is best known for writing the X-Men in the period where it went from a bi-monthly all but canceled reprint book to outselling every other comic book published by a factor of five. As time went by it became more and more clear that he had certain verbal tics that came up repeatedly.
Not just single words but whole phrases and speeches. A list of a few of them can be found here. My personal favorite was that Claremont couldn’t go more than three issues without someone saying they’ll “own you, body and soul”.
Sorry, Joe, my memory is my cite.
FWIW, I’ve read 'em all too. I noticed it while listening to the Cabinet of Curiosities audiobook and I’d bet the farm they recycle those expressions at least twice in each subsequent book.
If you like we could turn it into a drinking game…
I came in to mention Tom Wolfe, but Shimmery beat me to it. Every time I read the phrase “solar plexus”, I felt like I’d been kicked there. IIRC, it was mostly in I am Charlotte Simmons and The Right Stuff, maybe A Man in Full
JK Rowling and every freaking adverb in existence. In her defence, she finally toned down on the adverbs in the last book, after Stephen King teased her that she’s never met an adverb she didn’t like(which may or may not be related to her cutting out the adverbs).
Wasn’t Dr. Seuss the worst for this?
Cat, hat, one, two, green, eggs, ham…
Was her face a rictus of horror when he told her this?
Seems like an awful lot of people get their rictus-face on in Stephen King books.
I dislike that over more than a couple of lines, because I always lose track of who’s speaking and have to count back through the lines of dialogue to figure out who said what. Unless the writer is Elmore Leonard, I’ve always figured it’s a lazy way out of writing proper prose. That said, using pointlessly esoteric verbs like “tintinnabulated” needs to be stopped, especially aong fantasy wriers.
Transformers has its own version - the Furmanism.
J.K. Rowling abuses “ominous” in book 5… she goes from using it 0 times in book 1, to using it 18 times in book 5, and most of the times are completely unnecessary.
Also Tolkien uses the word “queer” 43 times in LOTR book 1, lol. It makes me laugh for some reason rather than be annoyed.
She’s a critic not a novelist, but Michiko Kakutani gets criticized for overuse of the word “limn,” which most of us are otherwise unlikely to encounter in our lifetime. She recently did it again in the review for J.K. Rowling’s new book. Kind of grating.
Aaron Sorkin.
Simon Green:
“In the Nightside.”
“Anything for the Family.”
“it was the easiest thing in the world”
This.
I’d never noticed the word “preternatural” until I read her vampire series. She uses it in every other paragraph.
Not exactly on point, But I got annoyed with Kurt Vonnegut’s endlessly repetitive use of short phrases:
“so it goes”
“breakfast of champions”
“hi ho”
I know there was a purpose to it, but it got tiring.
In the alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, the use of the word “butternut.”
If I never had to read that work again I would be happy.
Michael Moorcock likes the word “sardonic”, too.
Oddball words that I’ve noticed in the works of Anthony Trollope: buckram, jointure, eat (instead of “ate”, as in “he eat his dinner”)
I wonder if that’s where I got it. In my internal narration that happens sometimes, when I think of something and start doing it immediately, a phrase half forms in my brain but I’ve never nailed it down completely. Something to the effect of “No sooner marry thought to action…” but I don’t know how it would end or if it needs an end. I always figured it came from Dante.
I only have one contribution, but it is more than valid. Pat Conroy, in his book “The Prince of Tides”, used the word ‘feckless’ so frequently I began praying for the introduction of a character who was, indeed, fecked.
mmm
“Foeman”. But to be fair, pretty much everyone on Barsoom wants to kill John Carter.