I think you have to be a very particular kind of person to think reading something that’s fundamentally intended as a reference book can be edifying.
I picked this up on a lark—I have, in the past, read and even enjoyed reference works on other sprawling fictonal worlds (I’m thinking Middle Earth and the universe of Dune here), why not this one?
It took me a couple of sprints—both associated with trips that involved medium-ish flights and occasional bits of downtime to fill—but I finished it. That doesn’t really say much, though: I can still count the number of books that (as an adult) I’ve started but not finished without taking my shoes off.
I guess what it comes down to is that while I am still that person—after all, I am not accosting you with all of the damned technical books and papers I read (often repeatedly) at a rate of roughly 1:1 (or maybe a little higher) with mainstream fiction and non-fiction—I don’t care enough about this world to enjoy wading through a book like this.
It’s not that it’s bad—and many of the pictures are very pretty indeed—it’s just that I was bored out of my skull.
And yet I finished it anyway. What does that say about me?
