More Words, Deeper Hole

Then too, the charge being leveled of 'telling, not showing' has to explain why one is better than the other in specific categories. Yes, infodumps can be clunky, and often are, and often overused. But consider what they replace (sometimes.) For Anderson to show the history of Johannine influence in politics while keeping the word count essentially the same strikes me as a fairly difficult task. Iow, that clunky infodump replaces what would arguably be several stories worth of material in and of themselves.