It's certainly not the "sword" part of "sword and sorcery," but I absolutely loved a book from last year called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

I'm talking a freak out kind of love. I bought a signed copy off eBay I liked it so much.

It's set in a slightly alternate England during the Napoleonic War. Magic is real. It's a lot of talky, not much fighty. But it's oddly compelling and addictive. And it has a dark dimension that makes it creepy. Some have said it's a Harry Potter for adults. But too many people replied that Harry Potter is the Harry Potter for adults.

And by the way, the author Susanna Clark lists The Watchmen as one of her top influences of all time. No similarity in the work, mind you, but Ms. Clark's taste reflects well on her.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8241&p=141162&hilit=+norrell#p141162

Watchmen by Alan Moore. This is a graphic novel - and it’s about superheroes. Nevertheless it’s full of real characters and real situations. The first time I read it I could not put it down. I managed on very little sleep and when I had to go to work I felt physically ill until I was able to go back to it. Moore does things in Watchmen which are impossible to do in a film or a novel without getting tricksy or arty. For example he can easily interweave two apparently unrelated stories, happening at the same time in New York - showing one in pictures, and running the dialogue of the other over the top. Of course the stories aren’t unrelated — they comment on each other and make each other deeper, darker, more moving. It is simply virtuoso..

Who are your five favourite authors, and why?
Jane Austen who got as close to perfection as anyone can.

Alan Moore (see above) who, in the words of Jonathan Ross, causes middle-aged men (and women) to fall to their knees in comic shops, weeping in gratitude.

Charles Dickens: There is no one Dickens novel I could pick over all the others. Dickens is huge — like the sky. Pick any page of Dickens and it’s immediately recognisable as him, yet he might be doing social satire, or farce, or horror, or a psychological study of a murderer — or any combination of these. He’s always much more than you remember — more playful, more surreal, more campaigning, more sentimental, more Victorian, more good and more bad.

Neil Gaiman who is the most audacious and surprising writer. In the first comic of his I read, he emptied Hell. I was quite shocked. I thought 'Are you really allowed to do that?' Apparently you are.

Joss Whedon and other assorted writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not perfect. The plots often creak. But the dialogue is wonderful and the characterisation is as almost as good. Apparently Joss Whedon starts from emotion. He asks what emotion does the viewer need to feel? and what emotion does the character need to feel? These are very good questions for any writer in writing any fiction. Get that right and your readers/viewers will want to keep reading/watching.

http://www.jonathanstrange.com/copy.asp?s=3

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years. It's funny, moving, scary, otherworldly, practical and magical, a journey through light and shadow — a delight to read, both for the elegant and precise use of words, which Ms Clarke deploys as wisely and dangerously as Wellington once deployed his troops, and for the vast sweep of the story, as tangled and twisting as old London streets or dark English woods. It is a huge book, filled with people it is a delight to meet, and incidents and places one wishes to revisit, which is, from beginning to end, a perfect pleasure. Closing Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell after 800 pages my only regret was that it wasn't twice the length.'

http://bloomsbury.com/susannaclarke/

Here are Neil Gaiman's thoughts from back when he read the book (he ended up doing a blurb for the book itself)"

at heart it's simply a story about being loyal to your best friend, even if he's an asshole.