Alas my friends alas

I started reading Alas, Babylon a few days ago and it really isn't that bad it's actually pretty good. My only problem is with all the writing! A page and a half of research on the cold war, character description, key facts, theme, and summery of each chapter. And for the other book (which i haven't started yet) calls for a prologue at least a page and a half and some kind of thing like mrs. jackson had us do for every chapter or something about paragraphs, still confused about that one. And then i'm reading the Queen of Camelot which is six hundred pages small print ugg, if only my dad would just let go ahead and buy a house!!!!