The Drizz't Do'Urden series. D&D fiction at its best...except of course for the Dragonlance novels.

Lord of the Rings?

TlalocW

Not as "adult" as Fire and Ice, but Terry Brooks and David Eddings both have excellent fantasy series.

Lots of stuff I've never heard of (until now). I can personally vouch for Tolkien, Martin, Eddings, King, Gaiman, Rowling, Salvatore, Wilde and Carroll. These guys weren't listed but are OK; Terry Brooks, Dennis McKeirnan, Raymond Feist, Christopher Paolini.

NPR's list seems a bit more mainstream... http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fantasy-books.

I will personally recommend you go with # 18, Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. You won't regret it. Also check out # 26 - I loved that book (and most of Stephenson's other stuff too).

Not a series but anything from these authors:

Guy Gavriel Kay - Lions of Al-Rassan, Tigana, Song of Arbonne, Last Light of the Sun, Kingdom of Heaven.

Series:

Jacqueline Carey - Kushiel's Series
Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn Trilogy (any of his books I highly recommend)
Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time series (if you haven't already read it)
Brent Weeks - Night Angel trilogy, maybe even the Lightbringer one.
Stephen R. Lawhead - Very british, he does a lot of King Arthur things, he even did a Ri Bran la Hud - Which is a Robinhood trilogy that really works well.
Jim Butcher - Codex Alera series, but he is better known for the Dresden Files.

I read a lot of that cheeseburger fantasies. So, good luck!

Best fantasy series I've ever read. Don't want to cause a flame war, but kicks the shit out of Martin's Fire and Ice series. Hands down.

I think I dropped off after the first 20 chapters.
I don't know why either.

I'll have to get back to it, if I can find them.
So you think it is better than GRRM's series? I'll try to stick with it a bit more. I tend to like authors that actually work on finishing their books at a timely manner.

Characters are deeper and more interesting. Even minor characters you still get a feeling for them and their situation, what they're going through. Scope is vast. I will say that the first book is not the best of the series - I'd actually put it somewhere near the bottom (though that may be simply because it was the first book, and didn't have a sense of the overall scope of the story).

As for timely manner, GRRM has failed in that one. It's taken forever from book 4 to the final ones. And now that all the Malazan books are out, there's no concern about having to wait for the next one.

That is the problem with big scope series.
Sometimes you may have to concentrate on very few before building it up.
20 Chapters in to it, I lost track and got stuck doing something else, and forgot to pick it up.

The thing is, I started reading it a few days before Cold Days of the Dresden Files came out. I tend to finish books quickly unless I get distracted by something else. I just never picked it back up.

It is a large scope, with lots of characters, and so you can sometimes get lost if you read other books, or have lots of down time, in between.

I read this series, The Farseer Trilogy, in when I was in College and it's one of the fantasy series that has really stuck with me all these years. Over the summer I started rereading the series and was so happy to find that the book was just as good as I remembered it.

A quick synopsis of the first book, Assassin's Apprentice:

Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated like an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill–and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family. As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission. And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.

Hobbs has a total of 15 books set in the same world as the Farseer Trilogy.

http://www.robinhobb.com/novels/

While all of these series are in the same world they do not cross over significantly.
The Liveship Traders series and the Rainwild Chronicles are the most closely connected. I strongly recommend reading the Liveship series prior to reading the Rainwild one.

I am looking forward to reading the Fitz and the Fool series

However I must repeat, just ignore Soldier's Son.

n/t

The first book is THE WAY OF KINGS, the second is WORDS OF RADIENCE. I'm eagerly awaiting the third book.

Thus far the Stormlight series has proved Sanderson an absolute master in creating credible worlds totally different from anythig before. It leaves his Mistborn series in the dust.

http://brandonsanderson.com/books/the-stormlight-archive/

And very good urban fantasy at that. Great characters and stories, with some solid tertiary content like graphic novels.

This is just my completely unbiased opinion though.

I cannot recommend this series enough. The world-building is beautiful, the characters have extremely well-thought out personalities and motivations, there's plenty of action and intrigue, along with enough really neat plot twists and original ideas to keep you glued to the page.

Humanity terraformed a hothouse, high-oxygen colony world and genetically engineered dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles -- apparently just for the hell of it -- then fell back into barbarism due to ...or so a few things imply. Eventually, they pulled themselves back up to roughly 15th-century technology...and dinosaurs are integrated into their society as everything from pets to beasts of burden to war-beasts.

The intrigue isn't on par with GoT, but there are some unexpected twists, and even the villain of the piece (well, the villain so far -- he's a bit of a pawn for more shadowy interests) has understandable motivations.

It's also a lot of fun to read, for obvious reasons.

Just do it. Talk with you on the other side.

While not as raw and graphic as the I&F series, the Realms offer high adventure fantasy on the top level. Authors to consider include R.A. Salvatore, Richard Lee Byers and Paul S. Kemp.

Kemp’s Facebook page is also fun to follow as he does some excellent political commentary as well.