I'm equally fascinated by the idea that someone would bother to read fiction if they didn't care. For me, in the best fiction, there is a real emotional involvement and anything that lacks that falls short of my expectations (or hopes, anyway).
... Although I do have to admit that, as a writer myself, I do find some intellectual curiosity about the mechanics: how certain writers achieve what they do, or - more often - how certain writers fail to achieve it. All in the faint hope of learning what to do and what not to do. But in what I consider to be the best fiction, that separation tends to fail me, and I "wake up" later and wonder how they did it to me ... again.
