Seriously.  I am getting dumber.  I am almost positive I used to be smarter.  I sure hope I was, anyway.

I really only enjoy what Scott Sigler calls 'Popcorn Novels.'  When I sit down to read I want something that moves, that grabs me, that has tension on every page.  Like a summer popcorn blockbuster movie.  I like novels that grab me, whirl me around, and throw plot twists and conflict at me at every turn.  I want a cliffhanger at every chapter that makes me say 'I'll stay awake to finish this chapter but then I am seriously going to bed.'  When I finish a novel I like to say, 'dang that was fun!'

I no longer have the appreciation or, well, intelligence to read books that the New York Times describes as important novels or novels that are very well written.  Where critics say the writer has an amazing gift of language, writes prose, blah blah blah.  If you don't grab me in the first few pages, heck, the first paragraph, I am probably going to lose interest.  I no longer have the patience for a story to build slowly over several chapters.  If someone tells me a book gets really good around page 200, or to 'just stick with it', I am pretty much guaranteed to give it a pass.

I firmly believe people can write well and write fiction that grabs you.  I also think people can write not so well but still write a story that grabs you.  I'll forgive mediocre writing if the story is fun.

But I cannot stomach paragraph after paragraph of a beautifully written description of a farmhouse on a summer day, the smell of the dirt road, the feel of the breeze, the history of the land, the deep emotional attachment the character has to the peeling paint on the ramshackle barn...

Its a freaking farm.  I get it.  Now make something happen.  If there's a vampire or serial killer or something at this farm then trot him the heck out and get on with it.

Sigh.

I think I actually got a little dumber while writing this.  Ah well.