Oooh, recs.

I think I rec’ed Megan Whalen Turner’s Queen’s Thief series in that post.

Let’s see... I found the Captive Prince books from an Amazon rec on The Godeaters, by Jesse Hajicek, so if you haven’t read that you really, really should.  You can buy a hardcopy or read it online for free.  Other indie books: I’m really, really fond of the characters, world-building, and themes/philosophizing in W.A. Hoffman’s Raised By Wolves series, although the later books started to get tangly for me.  I also remember being very impressed by Voinov & Etzweiler’s Dark Edge of Honor back when I read it.

More generally, some books I like to point people at: anything by Lois McMaster Bujold (partic. her Vorkosigan saga), Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books, Kim Harrison’s the Hollows series.  Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith.  I recently read Kristin Cashore’s Graceling series and they’re pretty good, with the third book, Bitterblue sweeping me right off my feet with its thematic nuance and character complexity <3.  I just started Kushiel’s Dart based on recommendations and it’s been pretty interesting so far.

And if you want to slide a bit more thoroughly into the NC-17 rated end of things, but also want awesome dystopian world-building, fascinatingly complex characters, and lots of plot and character development there’s Manna Francis’s Administration series, which you can both buy and read online for free.