Agreed. What is perfectly fine in a blog post can get tiresome in long form. It is not the question pre-empting structure, which is great in my opinion, but avuncular lines like "Okay wow; we’re just diving right in huh".

Yeah... he says you can learn the language in an afternoon, but his book is so long-winded... I just want a short intro so that I can start writing programs.

I really like the conversational style. If I wanted the quickest, driest way to get started in Janet, I'd probably go to https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/janet/

Sadly that doesn't features such as modules, fibers, PEGs, macros, etc

How about the official Janet documentation? https://janet-lang.org/docs/index.html

The book (which I really like so far, 7 chapters in) is more of a deep dive which covers a lot of the gotchas and intricacies without shying away from the nastier parts of the language. The documentation on the official site should get you going in a couple of hours.

+1 I find it hard not to read that sort of writing style as condescending.

tbh if you find this "condescending", you have to reevaluate your stance towards your general attitude. If you really wish to do so, you can find offensive and condescending wordings literally everywhere, it is always in the eye of the beholder to be offended or not.