A song of ice and fire by George r r martin is some of the finest \"realistic\" fantasy I´ve ever read. This is truly a series of evil cruel men and their machinations!
The downside to this is that the books are VERY slow in coming, and we have been waiting for something like 4/5 years - I think - on the next.
The Malazan book of the fallen by Steven Erikson is the best fantasy on the market - in my opinion - by far. This one has EVERYTHING you could want from gods to demons from alternate dimensions (warrens) to dragons from magicians to immortals from 7 hounds the size of small elephants to undead skeletons 300000 years old from giant stonesword wielding berserker warriors to shapeshifters. This series has everything. Beware though that the series have a dramatis persona of more than 500 persons by my estimate. Also - even though my description make it sound like a tween book with magical fairies it really isn´t - this book is far from easy to read, but very much worth the effort. The ninth book was releasd less than a month ago, and the series are planned to end with the next book which should be out in just about a year (based on the earlier releases). This is HIGHLY HIGHLY recommended!
Other noteworthy books/series:
\"the Prince of Nothing\"- series by Scott R Bakker.
\"The first law\" -series by Joe Abercrombie. A book where one of the \"heroes\" is a vain and cowardly fop, and another is a sadistic crippled torturer. Very unusual.
\"The Engineer trilogy\" by KJ Parker. A book where the unlikely main character is an engineer who gets sentenced to death for perfecting the blueprint of a toy. KJ Parker has also written the series \"The fencer Trilogy\" and \"The Scavenger trilogy\" which are also good.
\"The Stone Dance of the Chameleon\" by Ricardo Pinto. A Fantasy heavily inflenced by mayan and aztec legends and something completely different from any \"normal\" fantasy I´ve ever read.
I would not recommend \"the Sword of Truth\" - series by Terry Goodkind. His books become increasingly misogynystic, sadistic and \"preachy\" as the series unfold, and then there is the fact that whenever he opens his mouth he just sounds like a prat
If you´re into Sci-Fi I would recommend books by Neal Asher, Alastair Reynolds and Richard Morgan
@Ritual: You´re correct that \"the Wheel of Time\" series isn´t done yet.... And the author just died recently, so another author - with the help of Robert Jordans notes - are gonna finish the series (no telling when that might happen though - even if the \"1st\" book is out now).
