Books of 2022: Quarter 3

 Catching up on 7th grade reading

 

Search for Senna by K. A. Applegate

"Slowly Senna climbed to her feet. She turned and looked at us. She was maybe a hundred feet away.
     I could see confusion on her face.
     Her mouth formed the word, 'no.'
     And then the entire universe ripped apart."

Mysteriously called together one early morning, a group of average high school kids witness one of their own dragged through a portal in the jaws of a giant wolf, ripped from our world into another. In its wake, the four are brought through as well as the portal closes behind them. David, Christopher, April, and Jalil (almost strangers to one another) find themselves prisoners in Everworld, another dimension created by the old gods when they retired from Earth. Held captive by Loki accused of hiding his captured witch, the four of them search for not only a way to return home but also to save Senna, where she may be.

Land of Loss by K. A. Applegate

 

"Somehow, someway, for some reason, the old gods of Earth decided to abandon the real world. We didn't know why....
     They brought along all the creatures of myth and legend. And they dragged a healthy number of humans across with them, because, hey, what's the point in being a god if there's no one around to kiss your immortal butt."

Alongside Vikings, the stranded teenagers set sail for the realm of the Aztecs and their sun god, Huitzilopoctli. In an effort to secure the release of Odin from Loki's clutches, the Vikings need to take the sun god's head, while the group goes along believing themselves safe amongst the Vikings in case Loki comes for them. Christopher witnesses the horrors of combat and violence and so much worse in the clutches of the Aztecs. The group will need to rely on one another to not only survive the ordeal but escape to find their way home.

Enter the Enchanted by by K. A. Applegate

 

"We don't exactly know what Everworld is. We know it is a universe constructed by the fugitive gods of ancient Earth. We know that recently alien immortals have found their way in. Interlopers in a private chat room."

Reunited with Senna, April and the group find themselves in the company of Galahad and other knights of the Round Table. Momentarily safe within castle walls, the group looks to Senna for answers and only receives more questions: Is Senna really a witch? Is she their only way home as well as the way for every other being in Everworld to return to Earth? Can they escape Everworld, back to their lives, knowing that the monsters in Everworld can also use her a a portal to escape back to Earth?

Realm of the Reaper by K. A. Applegate

 

"Then the pig said, 'Give me your apples. Give me your apples or I'll gut you, one by one.'
     We gave him our apples.
     Just another day in Everworld."

Trudging through the woods, Jalil and the group are swept into an unsettling city at the base of a mountain where the guards face inward, allowing anyone to enter but ensuring no one leaves. The group finds themselves the guests of Hel, daughter of Loki and Ruler of the Viking underworld.

Discover the Destroyer by K. A. Applegate

 

"There was a stone, a ruby inside by chest. Right where my heart should be. And in six days it would burst into flame and kill me. We were thirsty, hungry, exhausted. Our heads, or at least my head, was full of recent memories of unspeakable horror.
     But I was feeling strangely upbeat."

David and the gang are set on a quest by a robbed dragon from Norse mythology - get my treasure back from the fairies, or the rubies swapped for your hearts will ignite and kill you. The five teenagers discover fairy land isn't quite what the real world makes them out to be, finding instead a giant marketplace - the hub of all of Everworld's commerce. Getting back the treasures is never as easy as just asking, and the fairies are too martially superior to swing a sword at. Instead the group will need to come up with something of value to trade, but what can they offer when the fairies not only control hordes of riches but they're also bargaining against the god-eater, Ka-Anor?

Fear the Fantastic by K. A. Applegate

 

"Whenever Everwold me went to sleep I sort of snapped back into the continuing saga of boring, real-world me.
     A great life. I could be dragon food one minute, fall asleep, and still have to face the SAT's.
     Here's a news flash: Life isn't fair."

Things had just started to look up for Christopher and the gang: They got their hearts back from a greedy dragon, they escaped an entire city of fairies that hated them, and now they were rich with a backpack full of diamonds. In Everworld though good things don't last forever, as the group finds themselves not only captured by Hetwan aliens but heading right into their territory. Promised immortality by a captured Greek god, the group finds they'll still need to pass right through Ka-Anor's capital to reach the relative safety of Olympus.

Gateway to the Gods by K. A. Applegate

 

"'Yeah. You know what? Screw their little temper tantrums. I'm tired of this. This is what comes from having your butt kissed for thousands of years. Reality time for the gods starts right now.'
     I think all three of us were proud of David at that moment.
     And all three of us edged slowly away from him."

Atop Mt. Olympus, the group finds a sanctuary they had yet to experience in their entire time in Everwold: A soothing bath, plentiful food, soft beds. The only downside appears to be the army of Hetwan marching against the Olympian gods who appear to be indifferent to the threat they face. April and the group must work to not only unite the gods but also assist in the effort to drive back the Hetwan army.

Brave the Betrayal by K. A. Applegate

 

"We had to figure out how to undo our careless mistake. We weren't exactly the serpents in the Garden of Eden, but we had managed to take a bad situation and make it worse.
     We had introduced gunpowder."

"Yeah, Jalil, tell yourself that's all there is to it. Tell yourself it's not personal. It's not ego. Real-world reason meets magic? No, real-world, nuclear-age ruthlessness meets Everworld naivete."

The Coo-Hatch, alien mortals kidnapped by their own alien god, have proven themselves a threat but also proven that they can be bargained with. The price - to be returned home and leave Everworld behind. The group is tasked by the Olympian gods to find Senna's mother, a priestess of Isis who can supposedly create a strong enough gateway to the Coo-Hatch home. On their way to the land of the Egyptian gods however, Jalil and the rest will need to cross the African region. Confronted and confounded by a messenger, the group will fight against a simple request but one that also challenges their beliefs - give a sacrifice in honor of the gods. In the real world, Jalil also faces an even more terrifying challenge - asking a girl on a date.

Inside the Illusion by K. A. Applegate

 

"They saw me as a witch. A gateway. A mutant freak who lived in both universes at once. To the gods I was a tool or an impediment. But they did not fear me, oh not yet. They didn't fear me because they didn't understand. They didn't see the crucial fact."

The group's entry into Egypt to search for Senna's mother, of course, does not go as smoothly as they hoped. They find Egypt choked and starved due to the damming of the Nile by dwarves. The city itself, its temples and palaces, are ruled by Amazons who are systematically looting everything of value while the Egyptian gods lay dormant. Expecting to find in her mother a power like herself, Senna instead finds a sad and scared woman simply looking to run to the next easiest thing - an utter disappointment in Senna's eyes. but the group will still need her to complete their bargain with the Coo-Hatch and turn the dies in the war with Ka-Anor.

Understand the Unknown by K. A. Applegate

 

"Didn't want to go to sleep and cross over to the real world, the old world. Just wasn't in the mood to deal with my mother or my job or school or any of those other people and things about my old life that no longer seemed very important."

Having escaped Egypt with a promise from Senna's mother to help send the Coo-Hatch back home, the group sets sail for Olympus. Thanks to Merlin's meddling, and a god-created storm, David and the group are sunk down into Neptune's domain where the psychopathic god rules his denizens through fear. Finding himself against a foe that could drown them with a thought, one that he cannot fight through brute force, David must find another way to save his team and escape. 

Mystify the Magician by K. A. Applegate

 

"'I'll go with you,' I said, startling myself and earning an honest surprised look from Elf Mommy, and a look of warm appreciation from Etain.
     'You will?' April said, more puzzled than impressed.
     'Yeah. Someone's going to need to show these two heroes how to run away.'"

Arriving back on the surface, the group find themselves on Eire shores in a town under the protection of Merlin himself. A town, in fact, though missing the protection of a god, managed to not only thrive, but even embrace the technology brought to Everworld by the group: electricity, telegraph, even a working cable car. Christopher even finds - love. Though safe for the moment, the group knows it is only a matter of time until Merlin's return. Senna though, unwilling to wait until she is formally captured, begins to enact her master plan, jeopardizing Christopher, the group, and even Everworld itself.

Entertain the End by K. A. Applegate

 

"Now, here we were, the four of us, planning an invasion of Hel's domain, fading or already gone in the real world, more than  likely we'd spend the rest of our lives in Everworld, a place of massive uncertainty, fear, and violence. And on some distant level, I really didn't mind."

April, the group, and a few others escape the capture of Merlinshire by Senna's soldiers but now see a new threat. With the Sennites, armed with real-world technology, now leaderless, and Ka-Anor, the alien God-Eater, both a threat to Everworld, the group decides it is finally time to gather forces to destroy one of the groups before they team-up and destroy Everworld together. To do so means another trip to Hel to rescue a couple of imprisoned gods, a realm none of them are happy about revisiting.

I don't remember exactly what it was that even reminded me of a book series I started in middle school and never finished as the school library only carried the first couple of books. So anyway, reminded, I first checked Amazon to make sure ALL the books were for sale (no point in buying a couple at a time only to find even just one book missing), then splurged and bought them all at once. So, that's what the reading list looked like for a while, though it really should not have taken me three months to finish as the books are meant for folks much younger than me. I know when I got caught up in it, it took me less than a week to finish a book but other things came up and some days I wouldn't read at all. And if you read the last book post, you know what that thing is.

Like another K. A. Applegate series, "Animorphs" (another I also never finished), each book is narrated by a different character from their perspective. Also like "Animorphs," this wasn't the typical teenage power trip fantasy that I was used to at the time. The four main characters are way out of their depth in dealing with the threats Everworld presents. David attempts to deal with it with bravery and confidence, and finds himself severely lacking. He isn't just a child facing battle-hardened adults, but a child fighting monsters and gods. Christopher is the jester of the group, using humor and jokes to deal with his fears. He even acknowledges his fear, just wanting to run away back home to his couch and television. April is the most sensible of the group, the "good girl" who spends her time at school and church and drama club. She attempts to balance out everyone's personalities to help them survive the situation they find themselves. Jalil is the logical one, always looking for a way to make sense of Everworld as fantastical of a place as it is. In the real world, he's plagued by his own demons, a severe case of OCD, but finds himself now fully in control of himself in Everworld.

Everworld itself is a patchwork of different old-world lands and religions and myths pieced together in a way for them all to exist in one seamless space. It's something that little kid me liked to read about, stories of old gods and heroes and monsters - simple stories that older me now knows were simple because myths are how they used to teach, and there's no point in trying to teach someone if the story you're using is just going to go over there head. And little-kid me liked seeing these different ideas blended together - "hey, what if we take these things and just blend them together?" - especially toward the end when we get to see real-world knowledge and tactics challenge the supernatural. I mean, I've probably written stories like that and will continue to write things like that (isn't that what Urban Fantasy is?).

As the series goes along, the group is faced with not the fear of death but even deeper, philosophical questions which Applegate poses to young readers. They find themselves questioning reality and if their Everworld lives have become more important than their real-world selves. Is their lives in a fantasy world really more important than their their mundane lives which is seemingly being left behind? David faces his past trauma to find where his need to always be brave comes from. Christopher, a borderline racist, sexist, alcoholic, and all-around asshole, grows-up after not only meeting people worse than him, but also those that are his better. April's faith is questioned when she calls out to the gods she can see instead of the one the believes in. Jalil's notions of logic, science, and rationalism are challenged constantly by Everworld's fantastical elements which at times hinders the group until he can find a way to balance both in his mind.

The end of the series, now that I somehow know more about books and publishing (thanks writer interviews), makes me think that the deal was only for 12 books and the publisher was unwilling to extend the contract. Who knows, maybe I have that wrong and it did end right where the writer wanted it to end. It just felt unfinished as the major threat was still out there in Everworld and the group simply leaves their real-world selves behind, fully investing in Everworld. Sorry for the 20 year old spoiler. I get that they killed their (possibly) only way back to Earth but I Applegate could have written a way for the group to find a way back if more time was given.

Books of 2022: Quarter 2

From the image you might think that I spent the last three months doing a lot of reading but really it was just the first two months and then my reading stalled out real quick (more on that at the end)

 

 

 How to Invent Everything by Ryan North

"If you are reading this Repair Guide, then you will not be returning to the future, and we apologize for any alleged failures in the FC3000tm, real or implied, that facilitated this scenario.
     If you would like to make peace with the idea that you will never return to your friends and family, please do so now. It helps to focus on the things you didn't like about them, such as their irritating habits or weird smells"

"How can you tell if they're safe to eat? A bad answer is 'eat a bunch and see if you die,' a better answer is 'eat just a little bit and see if you die,' but the best answer is 'read this section and then remember what you read, because there's actually a way to eat strange foods relatively safely.'"

Introduced as a sort-of manual for a futuristic time-travel device, after a brief introduction the manual jumps to a repair guide in case your rental time machine breaks down ... and guess what, there isn't one. Instead what follows is a guide to restarting civilization from the very beginning of human history, you know, to make you more comfortable with your situation, assuming you're stranded in the past. Though humorous throughout, the book (obviously) is still dense with fact and knowledge, enough so that I split my reading into two parts with another fiction book inbetween (yeah, you guessed it, another Jack Reacher novel). I'd put this book on a "Books to Buy" list (yeah, I've got one of those) because I'd been watching Dr. Stone at the time and, from the title of the book alone, I was interested. Dr. Stone, in case you don't know, is an anime in which every human on Earth is turned to stone for ... a long time (millennia, I think, I forgot) until Senku, a high-school genius, breaks free and sets to restoring civilization using his knowledge to re-create everything from ramen to radios. So a book that could give me the knowledge to make me the main protagonist in case the world suddenly needs to restart ... how could I pass that up? Yes, I know it won't as I barely remember what the different sections were, not to mention with my luck, day one of the apocalypse will find me in a rainstorm, soaking the book and once again making me useless.

Several sections include:
1. Five fundamentals you'll need to restart civilization: a) Spoken Language, b) Written Language, c) Numbers, d) the Scientific Method, and e) a Calorie Surplus (because you can't create civilization if most of your time is spent looking for food)

2. The Basics of Farming such as setting-up a crop rotation to make the most of your land

3. Useful Plants and Animals, and where and when they were first found (and possibly domesticated) so you know what to look for depending where and obviously when (see broken time machine) on Earth you're stranded

4. Re-creating musical instruments (percussion, string, and wind), the sounds most people find appealing and how to recreate that, and even how to read music

5. Computers, or at least the basics of it using logic machines. Honestly, I got bored at this part and didn't finish it. Really, I'm hoping that enough of the previous sections stay with me just so I have the basics, but this part, I'm not too concerned about using as, if the world is relying on me, then we're all already fucked.

Also, I made it through about half the book before I realized that the "ADVANCE UNCORRECTED PROOFS - NOT FOR SALE" marking on the cover is not a design but designates this book as an advanced copy that somehow got out to the public (I found it for $6 at Book-Off), which explains some of the publishing errors. Now though, I'm not sure if this particular book would actually help me as the marking does indicate that there are definitely errors, possibly with some of the facts too.

Worth Dying For by Lee Child

"He lived in a world where you don't start fights but you sure as hell finish them, and you don't lose them either, and he was the inheritor of generations of hard-won wisdom that said the best way to lose them was to assume they were over when they weren't yet."

"The standard first-aid remedies taught by the army medics were artificial respiration and external chest compressions, eighty beats a minute, as long as it took, but Reacher's personal rule of thumb was never to revive a guy who had just pulled a gun on him. He was fairly inflexible on the matter."

Passing through a small town, Jack Reacher finds himself at a motel bar next to a doctor refusing to treat a patient. After a little persuasion, Reacher discovers the woman's husband is the culprit but she asks Reacher not to retaliate, which of course doesn't happen. That's when Reacher finds out just who it is he's messed with - the one family in the town that everyone fears. Just looking to hitch a ride out of town, Reacher finds himself hunted on acres of flat farmland with no where to hide.

In the middle of How to Invent Everything, I decided to take a breather with another Jack Reacher novel, this one the missing book I hadn't been able to find. Taking place after 61 Hours, Reacher still bares the injuries of surviving an explosion, dragging himself out of a cavern against hurricane-force winds. Though injured, Reacher barely slows down as he sets out to deliver his own style of justice on those that would make themselves his enemy. Unlike many of the other books, this one doesn't quite stand-alone as it references the previous book in Reacher's injuries and for the destination he is traveling. Based on what I skimmed online, it's actually part of a set of four books that sort-of interconnect (at least more so than other Jack Reacher novels) ending with Never Go Back which the second Tom Cruise movie was based upon.

Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia

"'Silver bullets,' he explained. He stuck his gun back into his holster, then took a cigarette out of his coat and put it in his mouth. 'Your regular ones won't do shit to a werewolf. I'll give you a B for effort, though.'"

"Maybe that amulet granted immortality, and then again, maybe nobody had every bothered to shoot the son of bitch wearing it with an 84mm high-explosive round from a recoilless rifle before. Immortality was a relative term in this business."

Earl Harbinger, the nearly immortal werewolf and current leader of Monster Hunter International, is also one of a few PUFF exempt creatures, his safety earned through service to the United States of America. His past however comes back to haunt him when he's given intel that a monster from his time in Vietnam resurfaced in America looking to become the king of the werewolves. Not wanting to involve the rest of them team in his mess, Harbinger sets off to Michigan to confront an old enemy, and instead finds a plot much more sinister.

It took me a forever to find this book. I kept think I'd eventually find it on my next trip to Barnes and Nobles so I'd hold off on ordering it online only to continuously find it not in stock. So, I gave up and ordered it. The third book in the Monster Hunter International series, this one though, not focusing on Owen Pitt (the protagonist of the last two books). Instead, this one stars Earl Harbinger as he tackles problems from his past. Just as in the last two books, this one is again filled with blockbuster-movie levels of action. If you like action and guns and monsters and violence but never believed you could find it all in one book, well this is the series for you to read.

Verity by Colleen Hoover

The first sentence of the book: "I hear the crack of his skull before the splattering of blood reaches me."

Lowen is a small-time writer struggling financially when she receives a request to takeover the book series of another author, Verity Crawford, an established and well-known author. Reluctant at first, Lowen eventually agrees on behalf of the writer's husband, Jeremy. Upon arriving at their home to review Verity's notes, she finds Verity in a nearly vegetative state, the result of a car accident. In her search of Verity's office however, she finds an autobiography supposedly written by Verity herself that paints an image of the writer that grows more and more disturbing the further she reads. Stuck in the house with a man she's growing more and more fond of everyday and a women she's growing equally fearful of, Lowen searches for the truth behind this family's tragic history.

Not a book I would've picked up on my own. At the time I'm writing this, I recognize Hoover's name from the multiple times it appears on the weekly top-seller list. I have no idea what other types of books she writes, I'm completely unfamiliar with her work. But my co-worker had just finished it, describing it as a suspense/ mystery story. I immediately assumed, "Oh, like all those Jack Reacher novels you see me reading. Okay, I'll take a look." Then I read the teaser on the back of the book and thought, "Oh, not like those Jack Reacher novels," disappointed. Then, on the very first fucking page, some guy gets his head crushed under a bus, and I was hooked. Just some random dude getting hit and squished by a bus, some random guy we never learn more about, at all, through the rest of the book. The rest of the book though follows suit in terms of graphic nature, mostly a lot of sex scenes (one of the reasons I got the book was because my co-worker didn't want to share it with her dad as she normally does, "because sharing a book filled with sex with my dad, and then talking about it is weird."). If you can handle that, the rest of the book balances out the erotica with creepiness and suspense as Lowen tries to find the truth behind Verity and what is happening in the house.

Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler: I should really put this here first because well, according to the newspaper, this is a best-seller, so there might be a better than the usual minuscule chance someone (for reasons unknown to me) is looking for books using my dumb blog and may actually want to read this. Okay that's enough time for you to scroll past to the next book (just look for the next picture):

What a bullshit ending! So, did Verity really kill her child? Is she really as malicious as she appears in her autobiography or was it really just a writing exercise as she claimed in her letter? Who fucking cares? Apparently a lot of people from the other reviews I've seen online. The person we should be looking at is Jeremy, who in my theory, brought in Lowen not because of her writing style but because she writes mysteries and thrillers, and who better to help you figure out how to murder your wife and not leave behind evidence than someone who technically does it for a living?

Spaceship Earth by 

Simon Gunslinger is smart, creative, and wealthy, all the traits one needs to help a select group of humans to escape a dying Earth and set out into space in search of a new home and to discover if space really is infinite. The crew of a thousand people leave Earth in Simon's giant spaceship Gaea, a ship that will eventually become the size of a planet, and set out to explore. They'll discover alien races, resolve internal conflicts, and even discover worlds that could sustain human life.

So, I bought this at Kawaii Kon for $5 because, well, another writer was selling it and I'm a writer and it was just $5 (I spent a lot more for less that day), and nothing has inspired me more to continue with my own writing in a long time. And if you know me, you know it wasn't because I thought, "Wow, this is so good. I can't believe this guy wrote this on his own, self-published it, and sold his work at Kawaii Kon." It wasn't that at all. In fact there were so many errors (spelling, formatting, etc) that I know I can do better, and yet this guy put his writing into print and decided, "Yeah, I can sell this to the public." I guess that is one of the issues with self-publishing: some words were merged rather than having a space between them, some spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, extra line breaks, etc. I will admit, I did like the twist ending but the way the story flowed, well, I could tell it was written by someone more adept and familiar with writing scripts and screenplays: not a lot, if any, descriptions or setting up of scenes as that is usually done visually for the TV audience, and a lot more focus put into "telling" the reader what is happening (the whole story is a series of journal entries until the very end). All in all, it was a quick read over a couple lunch breaks, and hopefully (as stated before) gets me to start writing more often.

Night School by Lee Child

Jack Reacher is awarded a medal for service to his country. He is then sent to school under the pretense of inter-agency cooperation along with other outstanding agents from the CIA and FBI. Reacher and the others soon learn that the school is a cover to allow them to work secretly on a single tip received by the National Security Agency from an asset in Germany embedded within a Jihadist sleeper cell: "'The American wants a hundred million dollars,' said the Saudi Courier." Reacher and company are tasked with locating the American before he can offload his merchandise. But what exactly can he move that would cost a hundred million dollars?

Another Jack Reacher novel, this one set back when Reacher was still in the Army. This one I picked up with the batch of books I bought before the most recent purchase when I couldn't find the next one written chronologically. Since this book is a prequel book, I figured I could read it out of order without ruining the story line.

Deadly Class vol 11 by Rick Remender

It's the early 2000s. A reunion of sorts as Marcus seeks out Saya, pulling her from the depths of addiction and back to the fearsome warrior she once was. More reunions follow as more of the survivors are brought back together, though, of course, happiness doesn't last forever.

It feels as if time is winding down for what could be the last class of King's Dominion as it is now the early 2000s compared to the 1980s where the story first started. The story is filled with the brutal violence the series is know for, but also includes a good bit of reflection by Marcus on his past, from where he came from to where he finds himself now, one of the world's deadliest assassins. Besides of course the action the series has been known for, I really liked the reminiscing done by Marcus in this volume. I don't know, maybe I too am getting old.

Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set Rulebook and Lost Mine of Phandelver

 The "Rulebook" details the most basic things you need to know when starting to play: the basics of your character (which the box provides 5 pre-made characters or you can easily make your own through the D&D Beyond app, or figuring it out with the "Player's Handbook" which you'd have to buy separately), combat, spellcasting, and movement/ travel - all the important aspects of dungeon crawling. It's the "Player's Handbook" in its most basic form, which I know because I also bought the Handbook ... and couldn't stop smiling as I held it in my hands (as I've wanted it since I first saw it at Kawaii Kon).

More importantly, "Lost Mine of Phandelver" is a contained 4-part adventure meant to get everyone involved, both Players and Dungeon Master (DM), comfortable with playing D&D. Obviously, the Players become used to playing as their chosen characters and testing what they can do within the game. It also teaches the DM about roleplaying (providing several different NPCs to act out), running random encounters on long travels, tracking movements (who stand where), tracking characters (who attacks who and when), and learning what every fucking character can do (when can who attack who with what and how does it all work). The story itself focuses on a group of adventurers hired to guard a traveling cart as they are drawn into more than they bargained for when the associate who hires them is mysteriously kidnapped. Fighting against goblins and bandits and searching for information, they'll learn the whereabouts of a mysterious magical mine long thought buried.

I swear I had other books to read before I got myself pulled down this hole. So, I'd bought a Dungeons and Dragons Starter Box because I was interested, one other friend expressed interest who also said they might know another person who might be interested, and I knew I could talk at least one or two other people into playing. Plus, I thought it might help with my writing because it seems to be popular with writers, and I had plans to start a sort-of High Fantasy, swords-and-sorcery story... it's still there, I'm working on it. So, anyways, I got the Starter Box, got some friends involved, originally thought about doing some dumb shit as a rogue, then I volunteered to be the DM because the Rulebook literally says, "Since you're reading this, you're a good candidate to be the DM." I know what you're thinking though, "How hard could that be? 1 vs everyone else but you have access to all sorts of monsters." Well, the book also says (sort of), "Hey, don't be an asshole. This isn't just a game but a shared story, and if you just set out to murder your friends, no one is going to have a good time and they'll all hate you." So anyways, both books are a combined 96 pages or so and yet I spent months memorizing as much of them as I could: taking notes, predicting possible dungeon routes, scripting NPC encounters where I could and how to play out the other encounters, learning to calculate stats and rolls, messing with the dungeon maps, and everything else to make it look like I know what I'm doing. And that's why my reading stopped (not why the writing has stopped, I just got lazy and started watching a bunch of shows). 

Also, if you're curious, at the time I'm writing this the five of us are currently just about through the first half of the adventure. Also, if you were thinking I was going to turn our playthroughs into a write-up, you're out of your mind - I barely remember what I did yesterday and you think I'm going to remember EVERYTHING that happened in several three- to four-hour session to script. That's definitely not happening.