Is it just me, or is this book boring?

A couple of weeks back yet another set of awards was announced.  To say that I was surprised by the winner was an understatement.  I haven't read the book that won the award, but that was because I've read one of her earlier works.

This author has a long-running historical fantasy series that many people rave about.  But I found that I couldn't get through the book I tried without skimming huge chunks of it.  I found the pace very slow.  Even the big set-piece battle scenes were deadly dull.  At first I couldn't work out why it was so tedious.  Then I realised that most of the book was told, not shown.

I realised that the stodgy prose was tripping me up too.  The book is historical, so the characters won't use today's hip expressions, but even so, the long-winded way in which the characters chose to say some things left me...   There's no other way to put it.  I was bored.

So when I learned that this author's work had just won this major award I wondered if I was missing something.  Did I know nothing about writing?  Was I deluding myself that I knew what good writing was?  Then I saw a Twitter comment on the book that simply said "Was anyone else unable to get through X?"

That reassured me it wasn't just me missing the point.  And then I remembered that a couple of years back this same awards panel lauded another book that I was singularly underwhelmed with too.

So my trust in my own judgement is restored.  And in future, no matter how many awards a book has won, if it bores me, or the narrative leaves me feeling underwhelmed, then I'm going to decide that it's not a brilliant book.

I've been reading and writing SF for upwards of forty years now.  I've learned that I can tell within a couple of pages whether a book is going to engage me or not.  And I've decided that my opinion is just as valid as any awards panel judge's.  In fact, maybe it's more valuable, seeing as some of these people are a lot younger than me and have read a lot less in the genre than me.

In future I'm going to set boring books aside, even if they are award winners.  Life's too short for them.