I read all 337 books in Skyrim so you don't have to | Unraveled

Ah, The Elder Scrolls, games full of history. And Skyrim is no different. Hidden among the draugr and the dragons are a large number of

books

filled with very important and incredibly specific details. But with all the spells and shouts you

have

to act like a dragon, who actually has time to

read

all those

books

. YEAH. APPARENTLY. I

read

all the Skyrim books to answer the eternal question: "Should you read all the Skyrim books?" And I'm here to give you my top five book recommendations, here in my SKYRIM BOOK REPORT. Skyrim Book Report! How many books are there really in Skyrim?

After all, there are only eight people credited as Skyrim writers. Those eight people are responsible for every quest, every line of voice acting, every response you can give to an NPC. How much time do they

have

to write all those other books? A lot! Because they wrote so many books. So many books. *pained smile* Or at least they wrote most of them because some of them have been exempt from other Elder Scrolls games. Before I get into the nitty-gritty, let me explain my process on how I made this Skyrim Book Report. I printed out all the books on Skryim and then spent several eight-hour days reading ALL of them.

SINGLE. BOOK. I reduced it to 338 books because I didn't include magazines or newspapers. Everyone knows that self-published doesn't count. In total, there are 571 pages, five and a half point font, more than three hundred and sixteen THOUSAND words. I had two reactions to this. My first reaction was, "Wow." This is an incredible amount of world building. Writing 300,000 words that could essentially be skipped while still getting the full Skyrim experience is amazing, and it's a level of world-building that could only exist in an interactive medium. And for that I congratulate you, Bethesda. My second reaction to this was WHAT THE FUCK.

Hello TODD? WHAT THE HELL- In my Skyrim book report, I'll discuss: *slap* That's a spectacular cut. With a little luck. If I do my editing correctly. 338 books. Uh, actually, 337, I just realized, um, here, Songs of Skyrim, I put both in there, but there's a revised edition. I lied. Now there are only 337 books. Obviously, I don't have time to summarize all of this, and believe me, you wouldn't want to see it even if I could. I've divided them into categories to make it a little easier. First, historical books! These book titles you see on the screen are all biographies or stories.

What I categorized as stories were anything that had big historical dates, explanatory stories, or pretty much anything that was boring. The story is so BORING. UGHHHHH. JRR Tolkien *kiss* did the world a disservice by making every fantasy writer think he needed to chronicle every damn minute of his world for it to be legitimate. I don't give a shit about a king who lost a war 700 years ago. *snoring* Get out of here! Some of these biographies are actually quite interesting. But many of them are written as The Chronicles of Nchuleft. I didn't cross it out because it's a shitty story. “It came to pass in the Second Plantation (P.D. 1220) that Lord Ihlendam, on a journey through the Western Highlands, came to Nchuleft; and Protector Anchard and General Rkungthunch received him there, and Dalen-Zanchu also attended the meeting.

They talked for a long time alone; but only one thing was known about their business: that they would be friends of each other. They separated and each one went to his own colony.” RIVETED. Yuck. The story is so boring. I'm done with this. Next category: Instructional books! These are all field guides or basic recipes on how to make good armor or what flowers go in which potions. At best, they are instructional fiction books. At worst, they are obviously trying to force you to do specific things. It takes you out of fiction! Come on man. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Everyone's favorites: academic books. A curious fact about academic books that I learned in college is that no one has ever liked writing or reading an academic paper. WHY DID YOU PUT IT IN A VIDEO GAME? Mythical stories. It's a little strange differentiating things between myth and history, especially in this world where you can talk to demon princes. I split these two because they are so boring and a little more palatable. They're more like creation myths, or just random stories that are fun to read, so they're closer to good fiction. The poetic and dramatic. Everyone knows that poetry and theater are to be seen and not read.

AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA how much it hurts me that I don't have time to do staged readings of all of this. Oh my gosh, I would have loved that. We have “eh.” What gender is “eh”? It's the wild card. Um, these tend to be short stories, kind of like medieval fantasy think pieces. So I... I just put them here. HEY! We're done with this, so... Get out of here! Finally, we have 59 books that I would consider good fiction. Good fiction. What I did here was I gave myself three criteria for what would be a good fic in the realm of Skyrim.

Number one, does it help build the world around us? Number two, does it give us an interesting or different perspective on that world? And number three, okay? Now you might say, “Brian, what gives you the right to say what is good fiction?” I READ THE 338 YA DINGUS. BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY THESE WERE THE ONLY GOOD ONE. THIS IS ALL I AM QUALIFIED FOR NOW. I need a drink. *takes deep breath* Okay! There are still 59 of these, so obviously I can't summarize them all, but I left out five, and they are my top five Skyrim books.

So let's talk about that. Number five, Advances in lock picking. Now Advances in Lockpicking is actually an instructional book. But I think it does more than the other how-to books, where you open them and suddenly you're better at picking locks, because it's written by a thief with a very interesting voice. There is a great ending to this book: “Some thieves can't read. If you don't know how to read, ask someone to read this book to you. “Then it will make more sense.” Brilliant. I think it's a much funnier way than saying, "This is how to pick a lock." This is what this armor is.” Better than instructive.

Just good fiction. Number four, Pala. In a world where crazy creatures exist, how do you make fiction that is compelling and that people can experience in their own lives? Palla is a necromantic romantic book. It is a story about a man who sees this beautiful statue of a woman fighting a beast and instantly falls in love with this woman. It turns out that she is dead! To fight that beast. He decides to dedicate himself to necromancy to resurrect her. I don't want to ruin the surprise for you. It manages to tell an interesting story while also presenting these ideas about monsters and necromancy.

It's a little weird, but it's very well written. I'm going to go ahead and put three and two. Why do I open the Argonian Account and Feyfolken at the same time? Turns out it's written by the same fictional author: WAUGHIN JARTH. This one's for you, Waughin! I'm a big Jarth bobblehead! He's not actually in the story at all, I couldn't find any examples of him as an NPC. So I really hope he's in the next one. Because I want to meet Waughin. I just want to meet Waughin Jarth. These weren't actually written specifically for Skyrim. They were protected.

But they do an incredible job of building the world around you. The Argonian Account is actually the second story in a series about Decumus Scotti. This is kind of like the Hobbit of Tamriel, where we take this unassuming character and throw him into this amazing, completely foreign landscape, except instead of a hobbit, he's a mid-level bureaucrat. It's full of wacky comedy and wonderful world building about the Black Marsh, which is where all the Argonians live. You have to travel fast being eaten alive by a worm. Brilliant. I want to see that every time we go to Black Marsh.

It's very tasty and that's why I'm a fan of Jarth. Feyan people. It's a story about a scribe who is terrible at his job but receives an enchanted quill that forces him to be amazing. He descends into this madness and commits suicide at the end of the book, spoiler alert. But that's not really what this story is about. It's an interesting fic that teaches you about different Daedric princes and which ones might have caused this specific enchantment on the quill. That's some good world building! I'm interested in history! You told me something I can learn about the world.

I had a great time reading Feyfolken! Jarth, you did it again! And that leaves us with book number one. It's not The Lustful Argonian Maid. I feel like I should address this topic. I'll tell you why I didn't include it on my list of good fiction, and it's not because I'm a prude, who doesn't love a little erotic fiction about lizards? *OOH, COME ON BABY* The reason I didn't include The Lusty Argonian Maid as one of the best pieces of fiction is because it has SEVEN ACTS. Seven acts? There's no way you can sustain that level of erotic tension for seven acts.

That's like five and a half hours! As a person who has done one or two works in my life, that is simply not feasible. Well? I'd like to see them try it. ~I'd like to see them try~ *OOH, COME ON BABY* Before we get to number one, I have to get my flu shot. This is not a joke. It is important to get vaccinated against the flu. Alright, I'm back. The number one piece of fiction in Skyrim, not Waughin Jarth, sorry. He is Beggar, Thief, Warrior, King. Actually, there are four books. But it's all part of the story of Eslaf Erol.

It is completely fiction even within the fiction of Skyrim. The reason I put it first is because it's the only book that was legitimately hilarious. I laughed directly. *laugh* That's what I did. In real life. That is incredible. The writing style of these four books is naturally hilarious. There are so many bland, simple stories in Skyrim that follow the same setup, twist, and punchline. This doesn't have that. It's just a good story. One of these writers was just flexing, and I think it's wonderful that a writer has had the opportunity to, within Skyrim fiction, write something that's naturally funny.

Everyone should go home, go to their computers, start Skyrim, find these four books, and then read them in order. It's worth it! That's my quest for you in Skyrim. 300 gold points. That's all! That's it, that's all the books. So what did I learn from reading all 338 Skyrim books? Surprisingly, many. There are two main conclusions I drew from this. Number one, this is a masterclass on how to write effective flavor copy. Among all of these, historical fiction, how-to fiction, good fiction, and, you know, dubious fiction. This is a way to learn what to do and what not to do.

Obviously, not everyone will connect with certain types of style text. I'm sure there are many people who disagree with me and think that historical is the most important flavor text. And you know what? They are valid. And they are wrong. And they always seem to find my comments sections. When you take something good like Feyfolken that teaches you about Daedric princes, but in an interesting way, it really shines compared to Barenziah's three and a half million biographies. You don't even see them in Skyrim. I don't care about Barenziah. IT'S BORIIIIIII- But not like Feyfolken! That's really interesting and effective.

It also teaches you about all these wonderful forms of fiction. If you're a fiction teacher, teach your kids Skyrim! TEACH CHILDREN. WITH SKYRIM. I earned a degree in creative writing. That's all I have to say about it. Second, this is a wonderful teaching device about unreliable narrators. Many of these stories are denying others. This is a wonderful way to show people that you need to read everything if you want to get the full picture. I read everything. I am the guardian of the image. Those are all the books in Skyrim. So it's time we revisit that ever-present question: "Should you read every Skyrim book?" NO!

THAT? HOW COULD YOU WATCH THIS ENTIRE 10+ MINUTE VIDEO AND THINK IT WOULD SAY SOMETHING-WHAT? NO! I BEAR THIS BURDEN! FOR YOU! DON'T READ THEM! NO! Please don't read them all. DON'T READ THEM! You can read the first five, okay. GRRRRR. HOW DARE YOU THROW MY GIFT AWAY! DON'T READ THEM! NOOOOOOOOOOO If you want to see me continue doing things like this, be sure to hit that subscribe button. And now, a staged reading of The Sultry Argonian Bard. Pat: I was never able to place your order. BDG: Oh! Is it too fast for you? Pat: I'm afraid it might damage my... instrument.

BDG: Ah, but you seem to handle it very well, honey. Pat: My lady, you flatter me. BDG: Well, it's such a BIG and GORGEOUS piece.