Mary Gentle's "Grunts" is funny and crude and cool. I haven't read anything else of hers, though. Is it funny as well?

No, I haven't. More to add to the list.

Micole informed me that #4 in the Steerswoman books is coming out in the fall, and that's not the end either. Current word is, planning for 7.

This is the point at which I worry.

General world-building series, I give a pass, because they're not specifically plotted-toward-a-climax, but Kirstein is very much plotted that way. Tad Williams suffers from story-bloat as he gets into the middle/ends of his series, too, but thus far I think he's kept it down to 3-4 volumes in each of his series. Like, the most immense volumes you will ever see, as wide as the American Heritage Dictionary, but only 3-4 of them.

Seven? Oh, that's not good. Damn.

Connie, the Ash novels are... um. How to describe them? Genre-bending mind-fuckery. Densely plotted. Gritty and brutal and smart. Guaranteed to upend your assumptions and make you go, "holy shit!" at least a couple of times.

Brutal, though. Lots of battles, lots of deaths. Creative as hell.

I think they're brilliant, but they're not for everyone.

I can deal with brutal. After all, "Grunts" has the immortal line: "Sergeant, pass me another elf. This one's split."

I should read Grunts at some point. I've had mixed success with her baroque stuff, although I recall enjoying Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light. Or, well, thinking they were good, anyway, which is different than enjoying.

Tad Williams suffers from story-bloat as he gets into the middle/ends of his series, too, but thus far I think he's kept it down to 3-4 volumes in each of his series. Like, the most immense volumes you will ever see, as wide as the American Heritage Dictionary, but only 3-4 of them.

(giggling like a Romper Room participant, over here.)

Some day I will tell the story of of the Jamaican guy in the London bookstore, and the message he asked me to deliver to Tad. It used the phrase "excess baggage charges" somewhere in the middle.

And TGAT (To Green Angel Tower) had to be split into two volumes, because the damned bindings cracked because of the thickness.

I love Tad very deeply, but I'm with you on the bloat question. Then again, to be fair, I'm not usually a fan of epics.

I'm reading one of his right now, (AIFG! Well, quite good so far, anyway) and the back cover specifically recommends it as one for readers who "would like to experience TW without committing to a few thousand pages and a couple of years between installments."

brenda, I'm betting it's War of the Flowers?

I think Kirstein's three books to date add up to less wordage than a single volume of Otherland. The June Locus has The Language of Power (Steerswoman #4) still on schedule for September.

I can't tell whether Nutty would love Ash or hate it with a passion.

Yes, TW does sprawl, but in the case of "Otherland," the sprawliness came at a good time for me. I really needed a book (or series of books) I could inhabit for several weeks.

I fear that I could be a very sprawly writer.