Oh, you're right. Research inserted as research is dreadfully boring, more often than not. I've skimmed over big chunks of books too, for that very reason. Even books and authors that I like. (Kim Stanley Robinson can tend to over do it sometimes, yet he's my favorite SF author). I think research serves to give the author a solid background, to bring the characters and settings to life. And readers will jump all over an author that has inconsistencies in fact, like a blue jay on a June bug.. ;-) I needed to research the Spanish Civil War, for instance, because I wanted my story to take place just outside of Spanish Morocco, after WWII but before the independence of Morocco. But by the time the story got cut down to size, the reader has no idea where it is taking place, except in some mountains, until the very last paragraph (where I did manage to mention Spanish Morocco). Why Spanish Morocco? Well that ties in to my research on Carthage, and the Punic Wars. And so on... jon

 
~jon
My Blog - Mad Utopia Writing in a new era.