[Antoninus]

I don't entirely agree. It's true that it goes on and on, and that the essential events could have been covered much more efficiently. However, I found plenty of the "filler" material entertaining, and I'm sure other readers enjoyed parts that didn't interest me.

Also, I'm sure that by the time #3 was in production, there was less pressure from the publisher to keep the page count down. They just slapped a big price tag on it and knew that millions people would buy it regardless.

[Tax-chick]

They just slapped a big price tag on it and knew that millions of people would buy it regardless.

Free enterprise is a marvelous thing. I'm a library user, myself.