I'm back to reading David Gemmel books again, and you can tell from my latest attempts at fiction that there's some inspiration coming from that direction.
Still have yet to try Pratchett.. the theme of humour kind of puts me off. I think I like my fantasy to be in bleak harsh worlds...
Pratchett has some great satire too. The early books are more a parody of standard fantasy, but they developed over the years with some great characters.