More Words, Deeper Hole

Although there are repeated claims in this thread that fantasy worlds require long passages of world-building prose, the generic nature of most fantasy worlds and the wide understanding of the tropes and patterns by the readership allows that to be skipped, if the writer wishes. Consider Operation Chaos (a fix-up, yes, but also a good novel), which does everything in less than 1000 pages and three volumes. Submitted today, an editor would see it as an outline and suggest that it should include yards of exploration and exposition, a lot of sex for the werewolf, and a tour of Hell. In three volumes.

Formerly, YA fantasy was the last bastion of this kind of self-discipline, and a book like Dealing with Dragons still provides great satisfaction and a complete story for the reader.