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.

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

In either event, I think her response would be entertaining. *grin*

Besides, it's not nearly as over-romantic as Dunnett. Sneaky but ... Hmm.

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

Ruh roh.

(I gave up on Otherland when I started #3, and realized I had totally forgotten who was who and why I should care. I did like the premise of the first book, and parts of the second, but it was such a slog I had to stop.)

(This is also why I haven't cracked the Stephen King hardcover I was gifted last fall. That man has not heard the word "brevity" in a long, long time.)

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

Yup. I'm not very far along because it's my bus book (i.e., I read it only on the bus on the way to work) but it's very intriguing so far.

The whole Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy is huge, but I never found it anything less than readable. I don't mind wordy as long as I'm entertained.

I found some of the insanity parts in Memory, Sorrow and Thorn a bit repetitive. When I re-read, especially when I re-read To Green Angel Tower, I skip past a fair amount of Characters A, B and C in the midst of their depersonalization crises.

I understand how the crises are necessary to cause the transmission of information and objects that allow the plot to come to completion, but the POV rambling gets a bit tiresome, to me.