I'll go ahead and peddle Stover again, I guess. Haven't done it in a few months, and reading his novelization of Ep III got me in the mood...
So yeah,
Heroes Die and
Blade of Tyshalle by Matthew Woodring Stover. Fantasy/Sci-Fi mix set in a future dystopian Earth where capitalism has eventually evolved into a caste system of You Are What You Do. For entertainment, the masses rely on the adventures of Actors, who use some futuristic technology to enter another world, one that's more or less full of what we consider to be things belonging to the realm of fantasy. The actors take on roles in this very real world. Sometimes they're heroes, sometimes villains, sometimes mages, sometimes killers - all for the enjoyment of the masses back home, who have live feeds into the experiences of the actors thanks to brain chips. The most popular Actor is Caine - the Blade of Tyshalle, the deadliest assassin who lives. Monarchs and Empires rise and fall at his hands (and at the whim of a Board of Govoners back on Earth). And that's just barely a weak glimpse at the premise.
Extremely graphic and highly intelligent, they're some of my favorite bits of writing from the past decade. HD is, according to the author, a "violent piece of entertainment that is itself a meditation on violence as entertainment", and BOT covers everything from chaos theory to free will to responsibility in all its shapes and forms. But if you think you can stomach the violence, don't mind having almost any preconceptions you might have dashed against the stones, and don't mind reading things that'd make a sailor blush and a priest's head explode, I can't recommend these enough.