The concept isn't unknown to me, but it's something I thought of as exceptionally rare. Something only a special sort of person could do. To see it's more or less commonplace technology...well, you can get why my first reaction is still to call it amazing.

[he doesn't say that books are that for him, another world to be in and to absorb new knowledge from. this is a colony of higher technology. a person had to adapt to it or at least know how to maneuver.]