Now that House of the Dragon has returned I am once again reminded of how much I love the world building of asoiaf... but how much I hate George Martin and his fetishistic desire to include incest , pedophilia, rape, and other reprehensible things in everything. The sword of truth novels had a similar issue... Cool works building and suddenly evil pedophiles, sexy demon bdsm ladies, and other word shit.

And I hate the "well he's trying to make it accurate" arguments. He's got a book series about dragons and wizards who merge themselves into trees and people who can possess birds and stuff what part of this is realistic?

He's got an interesting plot and storyline, but one that isn't significantly any better than any other fantasy series out there. He got popular and got a lot of attention because of the shock value of his work, not because of talent. Doubly so for how it appeared in HBO. Shocking with rape and gratuitous nudity every other episode.

That being said, I think his fantasy world-especially the prophecy stuff and the theory that the white walkers are the spirits of magical trees that were forced out of them. A lot of stuff based on real world folklore.

Does anyone have recommendations for a book or series that has that kind of old fantasy? Preferable with a woman lead but at least something that isn't so blatantly full of the author's fetishes?