I absolutely love the D’Shai books from Joel Rosenberg. It’s a very unique, vaguely middle-eastern-flavored fantasy world with a very interesting system of magic. Sadly, it’s only two books.
Mahaloth, I’m too lazy to re-read the thread so maybe this has been suggested: the Legends fantasy anthologies. They include novellas by many of the authors mentioned here (Hobb, Martin, Williams, etc.), and the stories are set in the worlds they’ve created in their series. The anthologies will give you a taste, and you can decide if you want to spring for the whole meal.
There are two hardcover anthologies, but they were split up for paperback, so there might be four paperbacks.
That does sound good.
Anyone who likes Lloyd Alexander can keep reading with his Westmark trilogy: Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen. Think of them as being (in a way) several hundred years after, and across a small sea from Prydain, when magic has faded from the world, and there are politics and firearms. But there are similar archetypes in the characters.
It took me longer than that to really get into it myself. I’m not sure of exact page number; somewhere around the first big battle I guess. I don’t like “beleaguered confused woman” fiction, I like “woman stomping the bad guys” fiction.
A second trilogy, although they have a different main character.
That did get to me. The author apparently agrees; he’s changed his name to “Robero” in the second trilogy. And one of the characters even comments that “At least he was smart enough to change his name!”
You’re more patient than me. I think I read the introduction and about three short chapters or something before I decided I hated the writing style, I was never going to like the writing style, no amount of plot would be able to make up for the writing style, and that it was a good thing it was a library book.
See, “Barjim” is still exotic enough to be a real name in another language. “Jimbob” doesn’t evoke anything in my head but the Waltons saying goodnight to each other for 15 minutes.
Seven, the two pre-novel ones are “Word of Unbinding” and “Rule of Names”, both in the Wind’s Twelve Quarters anthology.
If you liked Hobb, I’d say definitely give Bujold’s Chalion books a try. Not that Hobb and Bujold are carbon-copies or anything, but I think they are more character-driven than a lot of fantasists. (And Bujold’s Paladin of Souls, the second Chalion book, is one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read.)
I’m a little surprised you didn’t like the Keyes. I’m trying to remember the beginning, I know there’s a useless and annoying prologue and then it switches maybe to a conversation between two girls in a crypt? IF you didn’t read far enough to encounter the woodsman guy (whose name escapes me) and IF you ever want to give the book another try, see if you can hold on until he’s introduced. But I fully respect just saying, “Nope, this ain’t workin’. Next!” 
@Mahaloth: I’m pleased you enjoyed Assassin’s Apprentice, and hope you’ll keep going with the series of trilogies. Eleven going on twelve books should keep you happy for a nice, long while.
I had taken a break from the series after the 4th book, for a few years, and have just picked up the 5th. Now I’m wondering why I ever took the break! These books are marvelous, in all senses of the word.
What? No love for Repairman Jack?
Jack’s a rather resourceful everyman up against some seriously-weird goings-on in the long-running F. Paul Wilson series. Good reads all. Wilson’s Adversary series is engrossing, but most would probably consider it more horror than fantasy.
And ‘what?’ again: nobody’s mentioned Jack Chalker’s Well of Souls series? You’ll be hooked by the first book and won’t put them down until you’ve read the entire series.
Another thumbs-up for the Dragonriders of Pern and another vote to stay away from the Thomas Covenant books (major bleh), and to run, not walk, and get started on the Dresden Files.
I haven’t read the Codex Alera series as yet, because once I finish Dresden (two more to go), I’m going to resume reading Simon Green, who has a boatload of series to wade through, including the Deathstalker series and the Hawk & Fisher series.
My favorite is his Nightside series, followed very closely by the James Bondian-flavored/gently-parodied otherworldly Secret History series. What’s not to love about titles like ‘The Man with the Golden Torc,’ and ‘Daemons are Forever?’ 
Well of Souls is sci-fi, isn’t it?
I loved the Farseer books, but the Liveship books left me cold. Very cold. Bleh.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny gets my highest recommendation.
I’d also strongly recommend The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, which you don’t need to be a Pratchett fan to love.
I’ve heard people say that. The change in locale is jarring at first, but the character centeredness is still there. I was titillated by the dragon mystery in the Farseer books, and the Liveship books really get into that area of the story, as well as a bit of the Rain Wild story. There is nothing cliche about the way she writes about ships and pirates, it’s all pure wonder. I can’t wait to get to the fourth trilogy.
I just despised all of the characters. By the end of the third book, I was hoping they’d all die in some horrible way so I could be guaranteed never to read anything else about them.
The first few chapters of The Soprano Sorceress are…off in some fashion I admit. I’ve re-read the series several times, but always skip that part.
Yes.
I’m getting more intrigued, though it might just be because I’m rather fascinated by thinking of songs that I know that could be used in that world in some way. It’s funny how abstract most popular songs are.
I’d avoid recommending Chalker for the same reason I’d avoid recommending a Gor novel – there are some interesting ideas… but buried beneath Chalker’s recurrant fetishes. People getting transformed into overly sexualized sex slaves with no free will. Drugs that turn people into overly sexualized sex slaves with no free will. I’ve read 'em, skimming through the ooky parts, for the other good ideas thrown in (e.g., the Well World itself). But eventually you stumble across a purile “woman-turned-sex-slave masturbates in public because, like, she’s so turned on” scene.
At least the disagreeable rape scene in the Covenant books was in there because it’s core to the theme of the books – not just authorial wish-fulfillment.
And while the first Dragonriders of Pern book is fairly good, the quality declines rapidly. And recommending Pern in place of Covenant is a mental gear-shift I can’t quite wrap my brane around.
I can’t recall if it’s been mentioned already in this thread, but: if you haven’t read Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart – GO READ. NOW.
What, you think that evil people with that kind of power wouldn’t do that sort of thing to people? And considering that the people doing that sort of thing are clearly portrayed as bad guys and tend to end up dead or worse in the long run I’d consider it grossly unfair to compare Chalker’s work to Gor.
She comments on that problem actually; she knows a huge number of love songs and such, but rather fewer about obliterating armies. She has to re-write the lyrics to songs she already knows much of the time.
*"I have sung the terror of the power of all sounds,
I am brining forth the magma from the deeps where it resounds,
I have loosed the fateful tremors of the plates beneath the grounds.
My songs will smash the earth!
Glory, glory, halleluia, Glory, glory, halleluia,
Glory, glory, halleluia, my songs will smash the earth!"*