Grateful for this line of books that serve their purpose very well. From memory, some of the stories were about AI, a traveling band, space exploration, and a boat trip. So they're far more interesting than most beginner material. Short stories allow us to more easily make new connections with context. I was often able to work out what new words meant this way. This follows with Krashen's input hypothesis of going from i to i+1 with the help of our learned aspects of the language, knowledge of the world, and knowledge of the current situation.

Each story has multiple chapters, complete with chapter summaries and some multiple choice questions. Uploading the book to LingQ allowed me to compare the book's content to my already known words. I began the book somewhere around 4,000 known words, and the book contained 20–30% new words for me. But this is counting all of the English words that are in the introduction and conclusion, where Olly includes some extra information about the stories. Personally I think between 10–20% new words in a piece of content is most enjoyable at a lower level. Under 10% is too easy and above 20% can slow down the reading quite a bit. But the book was a smooth and very enjoyable read. Soon I'll start Olly's intermediate book, which currently contains 37% new words at 6,985 known words.