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When Women Were Dragons a great standalone book reimaging the 1950 based on women spontaneously turning into dragons. It's a concept book where a sociality issue is examined by fantasy tropes which are fun. Worth reading if you haven't done a female perspective novel or concept novel in a while.

Babel it's a fantasy historical account of oxford. It's beautiful and wonderful. The author also has a series Poppy Wars which is good but it's dark. But Babel is best.

Shannara. At least the first few.

Earthsea.

Oglaf 😆

Ah, I love recommendation posts.

It depends on what you actually enjoyed reading and why. I see you already have a lot of great suggestions. The only author I haven't yet seen mentioned is perhaps Asimov, although you said you prefer fantasy to sci fi. That's also my preference, however I find his short stories are worth reading and also low commitment for this reason.

One thing I find useful in recommendations is to know what else people have read and what they think about that. It helps me get an idea of which books I'm more likely to enjoy best or not, especially if I can compare their thoughts to mine about the same books. With that in mind, my thoughts:

Discworld is amazing. Pratchett is a great author. I like that he can write a story that on the surface is just a simple comedy/adventure, but if you are the type that also analyzes what they read you will soon see his stories go much deeper than what they appear to be. He will keep things entertaining and witty but also throw at you a piece of his mind for you to mull over and reflect on various aspects of life. Small Gods is one of my favorites.

I also really enjoyed Dungeon Crawler Karl, and I mean really really really. Hilarious. But it doesn't have the depth Pratchett has.

On a similar vein, The Witcher- loved the characters and the story is very entertaining, but t can't say I was blown away as with Pratchett.

I absolutely loved Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. Now that's some solid writing. The characters are so well fleshed out, unique, original. Somehow the world and the plot feel realistic, crazy as it sounds for a fantasy book. It may feel a bit slower in pacing than any of the three I previously mentioned, but not slower than LOTR which you have already read.

The hobbit is great. I loved every page of it. Just don't base your opinion of the movies if you've seen them, and not read the book. How the fuck did they shit out a 3.5 hour long turd from a 15 page chapter in the battle of the five armies. Holy shit.

Kingkiller chronicles so everyone can peer pressure rothfuss into finishing the fucking thing

His dark materials aka the Northern Lights series. I read it as a young teen and again as an adult. Really good.

I really like Frank Herbert's Dune. It is science fiction, but takes many aspects from history, like fiefdomship/politics and religion, especially from medieval times. Some argue the book is too much into details and thus can be dry (no pun intended) but I like it as the world seems more authentic, the characters more relatable.

The Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith. The series as a whole is the defining work of Space Opera.

The Incarnations of Immortality series by Alan Dean Foster. It coverers all of the main Incarnations. Death, Time, Mother Nature, War, the three fates and the Devil and an introspective God. An excellent seriese.

Brandon Sanderson books, specifically the cosmere stuff are all pretty fucking good.

My favourite is probably Mistborn but I know a lot of people prefer The Stormlight Archives. All worth reading!

I don't really like manga, but one of the best stories I've ever read in any format is the 7-volume Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It's post-apocalyptic fantasy about the nature of evil, the corruption of humanity, the extent to which individuals can fight against historical forces, and the fragility of civilization, for a start. Plus there's a lot of action and world-building. There's an anime movie which covers about one tenth of the story, if you want to get a feel for it.

The original "The Princess Bride" by S. Morgenstern

Malazan, Malazan, Malazan. Literally the result of two bored archaeologists and their DnD campaign while they were out on a dig.

It hangs with the best in terms of humor, tragedy, epic scope, and heroism. It does not hold your hand, in fact it will delight in letting your hand go while leading you through a dark room. Deeply philosophical, challenges and embraces tropes in equal part, absolutely interesting magic system(s). It is hardcore hopecore, it champions the little guy, empathy, and the bright mind over the slow. Main series is finished, 10 giant books. Also a bunch of others outside that series by both creators.

Be patient with it, some payoffs take a while. Read Gardens of the Moon and then Deadhouse Gates to see if it's clicking. It isn't for all.

Ringworld is solid. Just about everything written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle is good. When they work together, you get some solid stuff.

And books by Andy Weir are all very good. But you can cheat and watch the movies.

Ok so since you're doing sci-fi as well, Hyperion/Hyperion series.

LOTR... Of course, since this is really the start of the genre as it exists today. So when you read it and think that it's full of tropes... Continue thinking a little bit and realize that LOTR CREATED those tropes.

The Belgariad by David Eddings. I'll come out and say it, David Eddings was a horrible person, but this series is worth reading. He's dead now so you won't be supporting him if you get these books. The followup series "The Mallorean" is not a must read, it's basically a retread of "The Belgariad". As are his later series "The Tamuli" etc...

The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson. A lot of people will recommend Mistborn, or the Stormlight Archive, but both of those series are just parts of a greater arc called "The Cosmere". I would recommend starting with Elantris or Warbreaker, both of which are standalone books, but are in the Cosmere. Then go to Mistborn series 1, then tackle Stormlight Archive. Be warned, each book in SA is longer than LOTR in its entirety. But it's well worth the read.

A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay: One of my wife's favorite books. Not a series, but worth the read.

Memory, Sorry and Thorn by Tad Williams: Excellent series that doesn't get the recognition it deserves.

Destiny's Crucible by Olan Thorensen: I liked this one a lot and continue to follow it, although it's starting to get a little long.

The Riyria Revelations and Chronicles by Michael J Sullivan: Both of these series are great and worth the read.

For sci-fi check out The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi. It's about an interstellar empire that can only navigate through wormholes that are now closing up. The last emperor foresaw this and is trying to save as many humans as possible while fending off political rivals and assassins.

For a similar series check out Foundation from Isaac Asimov. It's more of an anthology of stories over the course of a millennium but Asimov has a brilliant way of piercing the story together through the vast gaps in time.

I haven't seen anyone recommend The Expanse here so I'll go ahead and do it. The show is a faithful adaptation given the complications that came from having to change networks and deal with some... Problematic aspects of some of its actors. The book series however goes into greater detail and goes beyond the 6th season to some of the best parts of the story in books 7 through 9.

My current fantasy fix is the Cradle series by Will Wight. He's not as well known as Sanderson but he's a diligent writer and has some interesting world building and magic concepts. If you want to start off light with him you might want to check out his Traveler's Gate series, it's only three books long but has great pacing.

The Powder Mage series is a very decent military grimdark fantasy that features a world with 17th century technology and some interesting magic systems. The story's decently written but it's the battles that caught my attention the most. It's always interesting to read about how some mage soldiers do a line of gunpowder like they're sniffing coke to make bullets travel unfathomable distances and snipe out enemy generals on the battlefield.

Loads of great suggestions in this thread, but I feel it's missing some lighter, easy to read and fun fantasy. So, let me suggest two series:

• The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. Enough books to last you a year. Can get a bit dark at times, but the prose is really fast flowing, the books are focused on high adventure, and the characters are really likeable. The series contains a trilogy that starts with Daughter of the Empire, which features a far higher quality prose, but it's tonally so different from the other books that you may want to skip it if you liked the first trilogy (or tetralogy, depending which edition you pick up).

• The Elenium trilogy by David Eddings, followed by the Tamuli trilogy. Eddings is best known for his Belgariad, but this trilogy is such a lightearted fun that I re-read it every couple of years.

Fourth Wing and the rest of the Empyrean series. It's technically Romantasy (romance/fantasy) and it's super popular now. But it's got good world building, dragons and sex in it. If you have never done a Romantasy it's worth a read even if you don't think you will like romance novels.

Last time I recommend Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, I got crucified over it. Imma do it again. It was a formative work to me, and I frequently quote the wizards' rules. Content warning though: some scenes are quite disturbing, and some of Terry's political opinions leak into the text and are questionable at best.

Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series is another of my favorites, and I think I can recommend it without content warnings but it's been a long time since I read it so I don't really remember.

Louis McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is also very good. Scifi instead of fantasy, but how often do I get the chance to recommend books?

R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy.

I don't know why this fell out of popular culture, but it's excellent and I haven't read a writer who writes better combat.

I'm not sure if you are wanting suggestions of series to be caught up on the zeitgeist or actually just good stuff to read or not. If you want good things to read that are free I recommend my two favorites. The Wandering Inn and Worm. They are both very long web serials and that is not in a lot of peoples wheel house but if you are the sort that is reading wheel of time and Stormlight Archives, then these are going to be your jam.

Worm The Wandering Inn

You will get varying degrees of people crapping on A Song of Ice and Fire, because it is incomplete... But the tale telling in his books are imo, unparalleled. Ive read and reread the series several times, and it always pays off, especially if you get into the deeper storytelling that you miss on the first read. Ive finally reached a peace with the author, after hating in him like everyone else... That is because i realized that id rather live in a world with the story he started, than live in a world where i never experienced the story at all.

Last week i finished the first book of a trilogy i had never heard of, and its a damn shame it doesn't have more fans. I urge anyone who sees this to add at least the first book to their reading list. That would be Bernard Cornwell's "The Winter King". It is a retelling of the King Arthur tale, from a new angle, and i LOVED it. The first book is pretty amazing on its own, and it stands alone. I have started the 2nd book, but not gotten too far into it.

Id also like to recommend The Black Company books by Glenn Cook. These are a different slant on fantasy, and really good.

Discworld is great, but the first few Rincewind books aren't as good as later books. Find the Discworld reading guide for help. You can't really go wrong with any top Fantasy or SciFi lists.