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Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
I've read a few books in the last few years that I honestly felt were padded with a lot of unneccessary character material that did not advance the story, nor make the characters or action more interesting or understandable.
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I've noted the same thing ... First books on various computer topics began to reach 900-page levels without really having to, and then novels began to swell in the same manner. (Elizabeth George is rather too verbose for my taste, and Hamilton's 'Pandora's Star' I got kind of lost in somewhere in the middle and never cared to finish.) Elizabeth George knows how to write, though -- but some younger authors I suspect have not learnt the art of revising and cutting.
I've also put this down to publisher demand -- for some reason they find it simpler to sell voluminous books, and won't ask for literary liposuction. A bit like the insistence in Victorian times that all novels should come in three volumes -- or the libraries (or perhaps it was the customers) wouldn't even consider buying them. Looks like we're back at the 3-volume novel size, but all in one cover.