suggestions for books, no prob.
bakker's the darkness that comes before was only mentioned once, it deserves another. its a trilogy that isnt dumbed down like most fantasy is these days.
erikson's malazan series is another good one, in that it is not dumbed down, and is done as realistically as possible for a book with magic and gods. however, he leaves you to figure things out for yourself a lot, and the books jump around in time a bit. both of which can be good if you can follow it, or annoying otherwise.
weis and hickman are known for their work in dragonlance... but their death gate cycle was -much- better.
and i cant believe no one has even mentioned gene wolfe. one of my favorites, though it can be hard to follow at times. start with the book of the new sun.
there is a lot more of course, and my personal preferences and biases are probably obvious. hell, i even like industrial music. but thats a good start, and most of those at least use an interesting twist on the (usually stale) genre.