[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
David Eddings left me a little cold. Especially the trivial 'boys and girls' talk along with stereotypes that he portrayed. Though I did like Athalus quite a bit, before the woman got a hold of him.

The trivial 'talk' is trademark Eddings. (I also think that's the influence of Leigh Edddings, his writing partner.) He specializes in the byplay between his characters. He does it to death in the Belgariad (Silk, Polgara, anyone?) and his other 3-5 volume sets. The Athalus novel is short enough (700+ pages), and has enough action, that you don't get sick of it as you do with his other works. However, since major characters in his works are gods, or demigods, his stories bear a slight resemblence to Dominions (if you look at it from a certain perspective).

I do highly recommend David Gemmell though. You won't be disappointed with any of his books. Deep characters, background, et cetera. And they are fast-paced.

Raymond Feist's stories are even deeper, but by the same token not 'casual reads'.

The series by David Drake that I recommend begins with the book Lord of the Isles. Good stuff. Not quite George Martin-caliber, but then only Feist comes close to that, IMHO.

Another set of books you can't go wrong with is L.E. Modesitt's "fantasy" books dealing with Recluce. I put fantasy in quotes because the deep backdrop of the story (without giving anything away) is actually science fiction. But you have to read about 5-7 books into the series, to a set of prequel novels, before you discover that the fantasy world he's set up isn't fantasy at all. But it reads and feels like fantasy, which is all that really matters. Also, unlike many other authors, the characters in his series change as the series takes you through different times and places on the world. Half the series is even from the point of view of the "enemy" (white) wizards, given that the series begins with the black (aka good) wizards. Just goes to show that perspective makes a huge difference. There's a lesson in there, somewhere. heh

My fantasy/SF library numbers over 3000 books, so I can give an opinion on most anything.