I recal lots of joking about being paid by the word, even he himself made jokes about the length of his novels, when he was dying while trying to finish the last of the story he said Tor would have to invent a new binding method because he was going to fit it all into the last one, no matter what. Sadly he didn't have enough time but left enough worldbuilding behind.
I think they might have been some of my favorates in part because of the length tbh, I'm a very fast reader.
intense pacing? it's a gd speedrun of it is what it is