I want some good fantasy recommendations, but so much of the genre is unbearable. I've identified two main reasons why, though I'm sure there are also many others.
- YA desperately written for a movie deal and/or teenaged foids
by older foids 
Can't stand this garbage and I doubt I need to explain why.
- Conversely I can't get through a lot of "standard" fantasy written by moids who don't see the difference between a novel and a DnD campaign.
Characters and plot usually take a backseat to pointless wiki lore and unending exposition. I'd say I like worldbuilding but it should be done more naturally than vomiting paragraphs. The plot shouldn't stop because the author needs us to know every detail about the temple or whatever we just passed by. The majority of these settings will also be shameless ripoffs of Tolkien and/or DnD with nothing new to offer.
I need some fantasy recs that avoid these pitfalls. I'm interested in finding any of the following
- Unique main characters. Examples of anything that made a particular protagonist stand out above the genre.
- Same with settings. Any that stood out (ideally right from the get-go, and not just because you'd gotten used to it after eight books)
- Stories that were concise while still being good. I'm not against wordier entries, but I think a lot of fantasy authors have trouble with brevity. I'm wondering if anyone knows of exceptions who still managed to pull off something creative.
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Have you read Lord of the Rings? I see you mentioned ripoffs but not if you tried the books themselves. They do have the
thing you mentioned, but are still pretty good to me. I also second Book of the New Sun, close enough to fantasy. Tbh i have not had much success with the genre myself either. Maybe The First Law series? Those were OK i thought but didnt quite do it for me in a way id recommend confidently. They do seem to fit your criteria though.
People shit on it all the time but i really enjoyed The Name of the Wind, the second one is pure autism though and the author doesnt seem too keen to ever finish the trilogy (probably because the second book is the equivalent of a tire neurodivergentally squeeling stuck in mud), but i would still read the 3rd if it came out because I liked the first one so much and still want to see where it goes.
ASOIAF has great characters but probably wont ever end. Also pretty easy to read, almost like they were made for TV. Pretty basic suggestion but didnt see you mention it either. Also pretty long series I guess.
I liked the movie Stardust, maybe you will like the book. I think it helped me get laid once too.
Cant think of anything else, tried a few like sanderson and didnt like at all.
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😴😴😴
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U do not belong on lit longpostbot. Begone from here
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Promising literary challenge: Write the best story you can without triggering longpostbot
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Never sold: Chuck's.
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I admit I have not read LotR. Someday
One thing I do admire about Tolkien is that he was big into history and looked to real mythology for his fantasy inspirations. There's still plenty of room for other authors to do that with other mythologies, but they'd rather just copy from existing fantasy rather than inspire anything new. Obviously I'm not criticizing Tolkien for that.
I read the first GoT book and liked it, but I'll probably never read the sequels. It was really just on the upper end of "okay", and medieval politics between Houses in a Kingdom isn't interesting to me. I'd prefer settings with several different civilizations, or alternatively one civilization that's more centralized and organized.
I'll look into your other recommendations
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The Hobbit is in my opinion the perfect fiction novel, read that if you haven't. Lord of the Rings gets lost in the weeds with lore sometimes but the Hobbit's pacing is perfect, it's an absolute gem. Also somehow ends up with atypical main characters for fantasy. Tolkien's narrative voice is so consistent and so charming in that book it puts him up there with the English greats imo.
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Wish i had more. I enjoy fantasy books but the genre is flooded with nonsense and its impossible to sift through all the shit.
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I wish I could just go to a book store, pick something out, and have a good time.
But I'd end up with 90% YA if I did that
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