Oh, yeah, they have a reputation for being long. There are 14 books total I believe, and each is pretty long.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time
That said, I was able to read the first the books with an average speed of a book a week (though I spent a lot of the weekends to do so), so I wouldn’t say they’re crazy huge books.
If anyone is interested in Discworld for world building, then I’d recommend skipping the first few books. They were written before Terry Pratchett had a good grasp on the world and the characters. They can be worth coming back to later, but I definitely recommend not starting with them. “Wyrd Sisters” and “Guards! Guards!” are pretty good entry points.
Not the same guy, but I started reading it a few weeks ago and just finished the fourth book last night. It does a pretty good job at both world building and character development in my opinion (though it really shines across books). In my opinion, the first book does a good job of introducing new elements of the setting at a good pace, and uses it’s characters who know little of the world to impart how special/rare some of the things are.
I haven’t thought about that comic in a long time, didn’t realize it was still going even into 2020. Thanks for bringing back some memories.