The Darkness That Comes Before by Scott Bakker which is Book One of The Prince Of Nothing, and has so many long, unwieldy titles that I keep forgetting what they are. I did NOT want to get into another multivolume epic fantasy but someone pressed me to it, and, well, it's an odd one. Very well written, quite dense with history, religion, philosophy, it can be heavy going, but he actually handles the complex plots and the characters with a surprising deftness and clarity, while leaving lots of fairly important stuff quite murky. It's unlike Martin, inasmuch is often about the human failings and foibles and even whims that create history, whereas history here is all about titanic forces being manipulated with varying degrees of success by powerful people who are probably all sociopathic monsters willing to sacrifice thousands for their own ends.