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I think you're right as a generality. But there are exceptions to everything. I'm reminded of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which usually had plenty going on but every so often would stop completely and devote a chapter to, say, charting the mathematical function of a character's horniness, or the erotic story involving antique furniture on some minor character's laptop. Stephenson has always gone wild on infodump digressions, but here he took it so far it became a spectacle.
Of course, a lot of people disliked Cryptonomicon for exactly these reasons. But I was amused.
I loved some of Stephenson's works. Diamond Age and Snow Crash in particular are two of my favorites. I read Cryptonomicon and felt elated at the end to have read such a massive and dense work but not much else. The story was interesting, if not a little too convoluted, but I found the humorous segments to be the best parts. His Quicksilver opus was too much for me. I bought the first tome anxiously awaiting a new Stephenson's tale and was greatly disappointed. I've never finished it or read any of the other parts.
Ultimately I put Stephenson in the Verbose category of writers and find his science fiction works in a world wholly his own to be his best works.
Another author I lump in this category is George R.R. Martin, though I think he lost his way in writing book 4 as it just didn't have the same connection to me as his other works. Or perhaps it was his nearly 4 year delay in writing it that ruined it for me.
Which brings up a question about series, etcetera, how do you prefer to read them. Personally I prefer to wait for all of a tale to be published and to read it book by book cover to cover. This isn't always possible but it is my preferred method.