Sci-Fi or Fantasy books similar to The Gap Cycle?

[bluefoxicy]

I just read the entire set of The Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson. Although it starts slow, it's one of the more epic things I've ever read. The characters are well-developed, and the story is deeply complex: on one end you have raw space opera and micro-conflict between some girl and a bunch of bad people; on the other, you have a huge, deep, complex political battle being fought in shadows on coercion and manipulation. Both of these are tied deeply together and the whole story eventually comes together into one piece.

The battles on the political field are as gripping as the high-speed evasive action dodging matter cannon fire in space. Sometimes you feel like holding your breath while Koina speaks to the GCES; sometimes the political relationships between two characters of opposing ideals are deeply troubling.

Donaldson also wrote The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I liked that series, but it worked very differently: pretty much you had good and evil. Covenant gets summoned by people who do everything to help each other, who have strong ethics, and who care for the land; he has to do battle against evil creatures of all kinds who harbor hate and spend their time trying to destroy things around them. The story's good, but the politics are non-existent: the struggle is one of brute force, fist against fist.

While I find that enjoyable, I found the more deep and complex conflicts in The Gap Cycle extremely enjoyable. Sure, we still had clear enemies; but sometimes the "good guys" worked for the "bad guys" and had to employ massive amounts of subterfuge and keep fealty to project a lot of false bonhomie. Some of the characters had to accept that sometimes your greatest enemy is yourself: you have no choice but to do things you despise to advance the destruction of everything you wish to save, whether that's yourself or everything but yourself; but the only way to hope you can one day save it all is to remain complicit until you have a chance to stop the destruction.

Any suggestions?