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Teraswaerto said:
I think you misjudge Martin, Edi.
The world he writes about is violent, and the fact he does not gloss over it is one of the things that make him a great writer. The fact that being a main character is not a guarantee if surviving does not mean he's "run out of ideas", just that for a while he told the story from the point of view of someone who doesn't live to see its end.
Also, I don't see how you can say Martin has too much rape and torture and then list Prince of Nothing as "good fantasy".
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The difference is the way they go about it. I know there's quite a bit of sex and also rape in Prince of Nothing, but Bakker hardly dwells on it the same way it jumps out from Martin's books. Case in point, there's the scene from SoIaF where Daenerys is married off to the barbarian and what follows reads like something from a pedophile's wet dream. Then there are some scenes where it is, completely out of the blue, brought up how the Lannisters' soldiers have tied women to stocks and are raping them etc ad nauseam, in places where it does not serve the plot at all.
In Prince of Nothing, I have a hard time remembering similar occurrences completely out of the blue. Black Company also has its share of mentions of what the mercenaries do to captured women, but that's just it, mere mentions without going into the gory details. Martin's writing in those instances reminds me far too much of Terry Goodkind's bull****.
I do understand that opinions may vary and that some people like Martin's work even in those instances that I deplore, and that is their right. It's also my right to express my own opinion on the subject, and at least I can enumerate sound reasons for those opinions of mine other than just some nebulous gut feelings.
Xietor, of J.V. Jones's books, Barbed Coil is standalone. Book of Words and Sword of Shadows can be read independently of each other, but I would recommend reading Book of Words before Sword of Shadows for reasons that will become VERY clear at the end of A Cavern of Black Ice. It is not necessary, but it will greatly enhance your understanding of the backstory and some other things.
Deimos, which books by Jones did you read? Granted that Book of Words is like drying to drink tar in some places, but once you get through those patches, it's good. The Sword of shadows trilogy is an order of magnitude better and much faster-paced, which just shows how much she has developed as a writer.