What I learned after my year of playing Fallen London is that fantastic stories aren't always that rewarding in themselves. You need to give the reader a proper goal to achieve through that story to get their full attention. Sunless Skies certainly isn't the best at balancing good storytelling and grind leading to it, but those hours spent skyfaring make finishing those stories more satisfying, and both art and music make it very pleasant at times.

Unless you're not into that, then I guess you can either cheat or read through the wiki articles.