Tallima: I picked up a few of his Wheel of Times. Everyone loves those books to pieces. I couldn't get past page 50. It was horribly slow and overly descriptive for my tastes. Does it get any better?
Jordan did world-building. In the same way that Tolkien is a stuffy bore to read [url= seriously, he writes like..well.. a nineteenth century English literature professor. It's great stuff, and the story is nearly perfect, but you can't fault someone for not enjoying the actual reading part of it ^_^ If you don't like Tolkien, you're just wrong, but it's fine not to like reading him. ][/url], Jordan is a pompous bore to read. But if you want a fleshed out world - not just a few cities here and there and some ambassadors to remind you there are other places, too - and an epic story, you won't do much better. If you can't enjoy it, no harm. You are missing out on a good story, though. [url= Also, if you don't lug those books along with you when you move, what are you going to use to hold down the tarp on your car when it gets windy? Or use half the series to build a wall around your new home to keep out the riffraff. ][/url]
Did you ever read Tad Williams'
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, or the more recent
Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson? Those are also great examples of worldbuilding, and though the page count can be daunting, they're good solid reads.
But if you don't want that, I always take a line to remind people that maybe the most technically perfect novels written this century are Patrick Rothfuss'
The Kingkiller Chronicle, which is only a trilogy (well, will be once he publishes the last book) plus an optional short novel. The series is an ode to language itself, and you almost have to read it through twice just to see all the secrets hidden in plain sight.
