This is definitely not your typical swords-and-sorcery tale. It takes elements of classic barbarian fantasy and tweaks and twists them in interesting ways. There's hack-and-slash adventuring and political intrigue, but there's also a lot about cultural norms, gender roles, power relations, sexual identity and kinks, the impact of a monetary economy on society, mythologies which shape and are shaped by all of the preceding, and the nature of language itself in structuring our perceptions of the world around us. So maybe like Umberto Eco writing a Conan novel?

One caveat is that this seems at first like a collection of short stories, but they all interweave to form a single long narrative. The stories are entertaining and thought-provoking on their own, but if you want to get the whole arc, you're signing up for four books and 1300+ pages. And you'll probably want to take notes to keep track of who's who and what's happened; details from previous stories suddenly become significant in later ones.

So it's not light reading, but I expect it'd be really rewarding if you're willing to commit to it. I've only gotten through the first book so far. I'd give it three and a half stars, and I wouldn't be surprised if I bumped that to four once I got through the whole thing. I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle the rest of it yet, but probably someday.