[WraithLord]

Oh boy. I was also very excited with the first books of Ice&Fire. I agree that the latter were on the decline.
And then, I discovered the Malazan series (there was this thread here about good fantasy books that domnions players liked, I got tons of useful info from there as well).
W/O exaggaration this is the best I have read so far. It is both witty and deep and has good action sequences and great battles and deep interesting characters and what not. I'm in the midnight tides now - Its somewhat slower in pace but still interesting since it closes lots of gaps.