Do you like swords and sorcery? Sounds more like that genre than high fantasy. Not that I'm the genre police.
I mean sounds like you want gore. if you wanted softcore porn piers anthony is the way to go but I can't think of something more brutal than gore. going to be interesting to read replies and see what else is out there.
I read John Ringo when I was younger (early 20's); it has a lot of what you are looking for.
I wouldn't call it high art, but the writing is fairly good.
TIL there's a sub here for books.
Terry Goodkind wrote the Sword of Truth series beginning with The Wizard's First rule in 1994, with 17 books in the main series and I believe still ongoing. Not much sex, but it has the brutality down, and is very well written.
Love the series, read it multiple times. It seems to get a lot of hate but I don't get why. I like the story, hate the villains, and can get invested in the characters. Plus it's very adult. My favorites series hands down.
I absolutely understand why people hate it. on lemmy, probably because of themes that could be interpreted as being anti communist. In the real world, because of how it mocks religion quite viciously, and promotes critical thinking.
Also multiple strong female characters who are well written, that really pisses people off.
Lol, the "strong female characters" and critical thinking of The Sword of Truth series. Might as well push Atlas Shrugged because "it's got a female author"
There are two aspects to it, one the books, and second the author. Author isn't very likable, if you read some of his interviews you will understand. His opinion about himself, about fantasy, and general readers (and authors) of fantasy can be a bit annoying. As for the books, they sometimes have very stupid writing.
It has been a long time since I read the series, but one scene that I remember on top of my head, there was a woman (or group of them), who has to escape / pass through the whole army, so they go topless, cause then all the men in army will not be looking at their face and won't recognize them.
There were many other things like that.
Gritty and gory? Black leopard, Red Wolf
Check out James Enge. He wrote a series that I really enjoyed that sounds like just what you are looking for.
Absolutely "The Library at Mount Char" by Scott Hawkins
It's not as much violent but Weaveworld by Clive Barker is in that dark fantasy vein, very good, very long.
Also dark, kinda cosmic, very good, is Imajica, also by Clive Barker. It's almost 900 pages tho so you've been warned.
Saving this thread because I'm curious
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