Have you read much in the genre of science fiction? Was this a positive or negative influence on your experience with 'House of Rumour'?

Have you read much in the genre of science fiction? If you haven't read much sci-fi, did this make you want to read the book to experience a new genre?

I have read very few books in the sci-fi genre and can only remember one that I really liked. This one is definitely not going to make me much interested in it either.

I have read and enjoyed a great variety of science fiction from Bradbury to Mary Doria Russell. When well written, it is one of my favorite genres. 'House of Rumour' does not fit in my "enjoyed" category. It was much too disjointed and difficult to put back together. I like a creative approach to a story but when the author is just too precious, it makes me feel he/she is just trying to showoff - or the editting was lousy.

I don't usually read much science fiction, and when I do it's books that are unusually good; books in which my disbelief is truly suspended and I join in, as it were, the adventure within its pages. Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is, for me, one of the best books I have read, regardless of its genre as was the follow-up book Children of God. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale was another favorite, so I am saying that I am not a stranger to science fiction, but my taste runs to books that even though they are written as "maybe not possible" there is that hint of "well, maybe it is actually possible;" enough at least to draw and maintain my attention. House of Rumour did not have this quality for me.

I have read a fair amount of science fiction, but I don't feel that such was an influence on how I felt about The House of Rumor. I don't view this book as a particularly good representative of sci fi or historical fiction, or any other genre that it attempted to encompass. It is, as JWW said, just too disjointed and not enjoyable.