Another accolade for the Song of Ice and Fire Series. I am an avid consumer of epic fantasy, and this one blows everything else away for veritas, savvy, writing, and character development. I was absolutely floored by how very good it is. I read the proof galley first book, "A Game of Thrones" in one sitting, all thousand and some-odd pages. It's that good.
And, as for the "Dwarf Porn Factor"
, I agree, he's a bit overboard there, but Tyrion Lannister may be my single favorite character in the whole series, definitely my favorite after Eddard Stark. Certainly one of the best developed characters in all of fantasy literature.
Some others that are within a whit of this quality - Glenn Cook's "Black Company" series. What if the good guys get tricked into working for the bad guys? This one is gritty without being as, shall we say, salacious as the Sword of Truth. Fantastic stuff, there's a ton of it (maybe a dozen books), it is, to all appearences, complete, and there is nothing else like it.
Tad William's "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series is also incredibly well thought out and writtened. He's disciplined himself almost perfectly to bring the plot to a close in three books (the last one was long enough that the paperback is two volumes). As with many epic fantasys, the cultures are reminiscent of historical cultures - Celts, Romans, Britons, and Steppe Nomads, but his elf analogs are like nothing else. At the end of the books, you are hungry for more, but not so much as to be grossly frustrated by the incredibly slim likelihood that there will ever be a follow on. (It just feels like a one shot.)
Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos (pronouce TAL-tosh) series, revolving around a human assassin in a world of elf like critters is one of the best written series out there, and novel in it's theme and presentation (the books are in good storytelling, rather than chronological order). It's like a collaboration between Ray Chandler and Roger Zelazney.
Tolkien is a bit better than Jordan, I think. And Jordan a bit better than Goodkind. The first couple of Dave Drake's Lord of the Isles books are entertaining, but he has fallen ito a formula that will prevent me from spending more money on them.
Ray Feist's Riftwar and Serpent War books are excellent light reading, as is the related series he wrote with Janey Wurtz. They came from, basically, the minutes of a D&D Campaign he used to run. Far darker are Barbara Hambly's "Time of the Dark" books, but of the same general quality.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Michael Moorcock in any discussion of epic fantasy. The Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon , and Erekose series are right in Genre. I have to class them as brain candy. They aren't incredibly well written, but neither are they badly written, and they are sort of the other side of the fantasy tradition from Tolkien, more pulpy than literary. If Martin is Tolkien's heir in this, then Goodkind is Moorcock's. Fritz Lieber's Fahfard and Grey Mouser Series (Swords of "X") is another of the type, but even more down to earth and pulp feeling than Moorcock. If I haven't given their quality a ringing endorsement, please do not take that ans damning with faint praise. I strongly urge that you read this to gain a better appreciation of the genre, as these are two of the first fully developed epic fantasies, and have influenced all the others. Yeah, it's like listening to Robert Johnson to appreciate Eric Clapton, but that's worth it too. I have never ready Robert Howard's Conan books, but they are on the short list, and they too fall into the historical context reading worth doing category.
Stephen R Donaldson may be the single worst writer ever. His prose is absolutely wretched. For a chapter, everything will be "ineffable", the "incohate". then "Turgid", "Trucluent", and "Steadfast" in their turns, one a chapter. I am waxing hyperbolic, but I really can't stress enough how truly awful his style is. However, with that said, his ideas make the nearly painfully bad writing at least endurable, and sometimes can make one forget what dreck it is. Thomas Covenant is as uniquely conceived a series of books as have ever been written. The Novella "Daughter of Regals" though is even better.
Finally, the lighter side: Grunts is a beautiful satire of the conventions of heroic fantasy. Terry Pratchett is the Monty Python of epic Fantasy. "Small Gods" is consistently one of my top 5 favorite books, and "The Colour of Magic" is equally good, if not so meaningful to me. They are witty to the n-th degree, and often have me laughing out loud. They are to Tolkien and Robert Howard what "The Life of Brian" is to the Bible, and a jolly good read.