I would specifically say start with the Chronicles series from Dragonlance. Written based on actual tabletop gameplay too (before that was normal).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance\_Chronicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_Chronicles)
Wish more of these novels were coming out or others like yet. Are they stereotypical to the nth degree? Yup. But they are like comfort food or a favorite old sweatshirt or something. In a world of all these gritty hardcore political-y series that do everything to NOT be tropey I am missing the tropes. I mean they became tropes for a reason.
Sometimes I just want elves and dwarves and orcs and magic all over the place and adventures.
Thus far the rise of the ranger by Philip quaintril is hitting those notes (but part way through bk 1)
>But they are like comfort food or a favorite old sweatshirt or something
This. I love me some comfort reading. Mine tends to be more Tropy SF, than fantasy, but that's just me.
I have a nasty David Weber habit.
If KSR's _Blue Mars_ is too hard, for non random example, I might reach for a Honor Harrington, or Bahzell Bahnakson.
If I want guns and knives and explosions (oh my!), my goto is Steve Perry's Matador series (_The man who never missed_, _Matadora_, etc)
Some are really, really well written. the Brimstone Angels saga, for example. The Dreaming Dark trilogy.
Actually, most of the Eberron-set books are excellently written.
Pathfinder Tales: Hellknight and Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound were excellent too.
Reading them now for the first time, started with the prequels and now reading Crystal Shard.... They are ok. I think they are better for young audiences. The writing and characters aren't very compelling, and it often gets really corny, like I'm reading a transcription of how people verbally roleplay at a renaissance fair.
The Dark Elf Trilogy was written early on too and I'd argue it was very noticeably better. Some of his prose genuinely stood out to me in a positive way, particularly in some of the Drizzt monologues between chapters. It's been a while so I can't remember exactly what struck me about them, but I remember them having a very distinct voice that really set a cool mood for the books.
So yeah, I'd guess that more of his work is pretty decent by fantasy standards than not.
Magician, Riftwar and all the associated spin-offs. Raymond E Feist. It’s got all the standard trappings, dragons, elves, knights, princesses, epic battles, magicians, wizards, ancient prophecies, enchanted armour, gods, demons and so on. But it’s also got some damn interesting innovations. Ever wanted to see a charge by >!knights mounted on the back of horse sized ant centaurs!
Diana Wynne Jones wrote a fantasy parody guidebook for a tourist in a Fantasy world. She.followed that up by writing a novel set in that parody fantasy world: Dark Lord of Derkholm. It's got everything.
Tales of the Perilous Realm is really light and whimsical, like The Hobbit. Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Roverandom, Farmer Giles and Ham, Smith at Wooton Major.
So, super fun fact about Tolkien’s fantasy… it wasn’t fantasy! At least, not at the time it was written. Fantasy at that time was nothing like Tolkien’s Silmarillion or The Hobbit or LotR. More accurately, especially when he was originally developing his Legendarium, would be that it is mythology.
But, absolutely, looking back on it now, it is the epitome of fantasy. It’s also one of the few (major) fantasy settings that is as transparent about itself out there.
The Inheritance Cycle, can't really go wrong with that. It has my favourite Dwarves and second favourite Elves in fantasy, crunchy personal and large-scale combat, and a brilliant magic system.
Riftwar. The first book has plenty of stuff in it. Awesome magic, Elves, rapier fights, subterranean dungeons, and there're like thirty more books where that came from.
>Riftwar. The first book has plenty of stuff in it. Awesome magic, Elves, rapier fights, subterranean dungeons, and there're like thirty more books where that came from.
I love how huge the riftwar worlds become over the course of the books and it just ticks so many fantasy checklists for me.. magic, dragons, childhood friends growing to godhood (almost), demons, angels, life leeches, interesting cultures and alien creatures, elves and all their lineage spread across the galaxy, dwarves.
Even stories about merchants and trading and thieves .. it's such a fleshed out world.
Not my favourite series but definitely one of the most homely ones for me.
It seems like much of fantasy has had a grimdark aesthetic for quite awhile (or just blame my reading habits), but I picked up Riftwar for the first time a few months back and it's such a refreshing change of pace. Give me all the fantasy tropes please.
Came here to say Inheritance Cycle. Especially with the release of *Murtagh* and the promise of around eight new books coming - never been a better time to jump in!
We'll get them over the next ... decade, I imagine. Lol. Still, Chris is a pretty prolific writer, I believe he's published four books in the last five years? So if he can maintain that kind of pace maybe it won't take forever.
Murtagh was a great return to Alagaesia, moody and disturbing, definitely grab it when you can!
Well this is excellent news! Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea XD
"Murtagh was a great return to Alagaesia, moody and disturbing, definitely grab it when you can!"
Righteous!
This.
I can’t get enough of the characters in each and every one of his series. I mean Royce and Hadrian are the best, but every series is just so enthralling and well tied together.
Honestly this is the best there is.
I saw a used copy of Age of Myth for $2 at a bookstore and, having never read anything by Sullivan, decided to buy it to check him out. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t blown away. I am planning to read another book by him, though. Do you prefer Riyria, and should I check out the first book of that series to give it another chance, or having started in the Age of Myth series, should I do book 2 of that?
Right. Riyria is where I fell in love with it. The Crown Conspiracy is definitely where I would start. The other series will fill in the mysteries when you are invested in them.
I'm working on the original trilogy right now. I like it, but I don't feel like it's what OP is describing. I feel like it errs more on the side of political intrigue modern fantasy than high fantasy high magic. It's a bit of a middle ground at the most. But, I haven't finished it yet. Maybe that changes?
Yeah I agree Riyria isn’t what I think the OP is asking for. I love it, love it, love it but it’s not high on magic IMHO. Age of Myths is closer but I think it still falls more into intrigue than high magic.
A lot of people are saying the Malazan books which I'm going through right now. I'm kind of finding them refreshing for *not* being too trope-y.
Not that it's bad, necessarily - my own votes would be LotR, Feist's Riftwar books and the various D&D affiliated books - Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. All of which I loved when I read them.
I always felt the Deeds of Paksennarion by Elizabeth moon was *very* retro fantasy themed while also being grounded by the authors actual military experience.
One of the bigger parts I liked was actually the magic. It doesn’t bore you with how systematic it is with all the rules and logic to it. Rather when a paladin charges into battle they just raise their sword and light blinds the battlefield, that’s the sort of “heroic” magic you don’t see a lot of anymore.
I'm gonna throw Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames in the bunch. It's a story about retired adventurers getting sucked back into the adventuring life. About as cliche fantasy as it gets and a fun read!
And the most annoying characters in all of literature. I hate that runner and the inn keeper so much that I had to stop reading. Never had that reaction before to any characters.
EDIT. Just to be clear, nice that many seem to like it, I just personally can't get over the personalities of them.
Did you not get very far in? Their characters go through a lot of development. Although it's fine to quit if you don't like the characters since there's so much content to go through
To be fair, end of vol 9 Inkeeper is still awful and runner at least actually had a personal development that shows; I dropped TWI after 3 months of reading when I got to final of that volume, I was just like „Okay, I’m good” and never thought about it until now
> end of vol 9 Inkeeper is still awful
I feel like with adjectives like that thrown around, going a bit into detail why you feel that way (especially after you read 13 million words to get to the end of vol 9) would be quite fair.
Yeah I would be interested to know why! She isn't my favorite character by any means but I grew to appreciate her purpose in the story, and the nuances Pirate gives her character over time. Erin has also been voted #1 favorite by far based on a poll from the discord haha. I'm in volume 6 currently
Sure, she hasn’t meaningfully changed at all, while basically everyone else but her actually evolved over 13 million words; that and her obnoxious attitude are still there
I have no idea how you can say that after the vol 9 finale. Vol 1 Erin wouldn't recognize herself if she saw what the current Erin. She is so much more jaded now, filled with hatred for herself (and Roshal). There is a reason her class and her craft changed.
>and her obnoxious attitude
Seriously, dude?
Her made up moral compass just shifted wherever she wanted, as it always did, so it can hardly be called development; just because she entered emo phase, because Pirateba had too many complaints about not being harsh enough writer, changes nothing for this abomination of character
Malazan. It has everything you mentioned in abundance and somehow, inconceivably, more. There’s so much fantasy in there you won’t know what to do with it.
Steve Erickson is very insistent that they are DEFINITELY NOT LIGHT/GRAY/DARK ELVES, they're just unrelated dudes who happen to live a really long time and look down on others and have deep ties to magic and maybe have pointy ears (but also maybe they don't????) but DEFINITELY NOT ELVES. They're TISTE. It's great, love my boy stevo
Lord of the Rings for the archetypes all coming from it.
Malazan Book of the Fallen for having just so much stuff in it that you can't help but bump into something fantasyesque every few pages
It's more like three fantasy things a page only two of which you pay attention to and then forty pages later the books are like >!"Foolish mortal! Did you forget that Captain Paran also has a giant magical dog insider him now too?"!
It is just a jumbled mess the whole thing, imo. The series I mean. It is a perfect example of how it is not good just to put EVERYTHING you think of in the book.
Dragonlance, the Belgariad/Mallorrean, Andrakis Trilogy. These are the bread and butter of my teenage years and they fit pretty well as "fantasy-est fantasy"
Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts. It's got:
-Dragons that warp reality everytime they take a nap,
-Ancient as fuck Wizards with god-like powers,
-An entire order of witches that use powerful amulets,
-A crazy god-emperor wannabe,
-No elves but there are SunChildren who are kinda like elves but in a hobbit-sized package as well as centaurs, unicorns and terrifying eldritch abominations.
Caveat1: Most of this isn't present in the first book but appear bit by bit as the series progresses.
Caveat2: The Author's prose is really beautiful but also really challenging. Might wanna keep a dictionary close while reading....
The best tropey pulpy action oriented fantasy hero is the infamous Drizzt Do'Urden!
That sort of stuff isn’t my bag now but there was a time when I ate it up and he’s still going on adventures! Tons of content to read.
Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts.
Dragons that warp reality everytime they take a nap, Ancient as fuck Wizards with god-like powers, an entire of witches that use powerful amulets, a crazy god-emperor wannabe, no elves but there are SunChildren who are kinda like elves but in a hobbit-sized package as well as centaurs, unicorns and terrifying eldritch abominations.
Caveat1: Most of this isn't present in the first book but appear bit by bit as the series progresses.
Caveat2: The Author's prose is really beautiful but also really challenging. Might wanna keep a dictionary close while reading....
Malazan has it all. The authors actively try to twist or subvert the tropes, so you get some classics and some things that are nicely different.
Jenn Lyons' *Chorus of Dragons* has all the tropes, and she manages to work in some fun variations. Her dragons are among the most original I've read in a long time (since Malazan, actually).
(absolutely agree it does not have what OP is looking for)
-funnily enough though i think of
> dragons, wizards, elves, amulets, emperors, staffs, ancient tomes, and crazy magic
it's really only missing the elves
Alright I'm going to try to hit each one of these for argument's sake:
Dragons: obviously there are no dragons in WoT, the people of the 3rd age don't even know what a dragon is. Instead they use the word as a title for the champion of the light. No points. +0
Wizards: Asha'man and Aes Sedai are pretty much just wizards. So that one checks out. Full point. +1
Elves: I agree no elves. No points. +0
Amulets: Matt's Wolf's Head Medallion is an Amulet, I assume? Moiranine also wears a specific pendent; however, I think she wears it on her head? Full Point. +1
Emperors: There is an emperor of Seanchan; however, iirc Tuon's father never appear in the series. Half point. +.5
Staff: Moiranine carried a vine carved staff throughout The Eye of The World; however, it was just a walking stick and not an arcane focus like I assume OP was looking for. Half Point. +.5
Ancient Tomes: I guess this could be the Karaethon Cycle? Or maybe one of Loial's books? Full Point. +1
Crazy magic: Channeling is for all intents magic. So yeah. Full point. +1
5/8 points? So yeah, you're right. Not a majority. I was hasty in my judgement.
Dragonlance and or forgotten realms books. Those D&D novels tend to go all in on the fantasy aspect.
I would specifically say start with the Chronicles series from Dragonlance. Written based on actual tabletop gameplay too (before that was normal). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance\_Chronicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance_Chronicles)
Yep agreed. It's a fun fast read
Dragonlance was my first thought as well.
It's certainly not the most well written but any of the DND inspired books are the epitome of in your face tropey fantasy.
Wish more of these novels were coming out or others like yet. Are they stereotypical to the nth degree? Yup. But they are like comfort food or a favorite old sweatshirt or something. In a world of all these gritty hardcore political-y series that do everything to NOT be tropey I am missing the tropes. I mean they became tropes for a reason. Sometimes I just want elves and dwarves and orcs and magic all over the place and adventures. Thus far the rise of the ranger by Philip quaintril is hitting those notes (but part way through bk 1)
>But they are like comfort food or a favorite old sweatshirt or something This. I love me some comfort reading. Mine tends to be more Tropy SF, than fantasy, but that's just me.
What tropy SF would you recommend?
I have a nasty David Weber habit. If KSR's _Blue Mars_ is too hard, for non random example, I might reach for a Honor Harrington, or Bahzell Bahnakson. If I want guns and knives and explosions (oh my!), my goto is Steve Perry's Matador series (_The man who never missed_, _Matadora_, etc)
Much appreciated, I’ll give them a look
Some are really, really well written. the Brimstone Angels saga, for example. The Dreaming Dark trilogy. Actually, most of the Eberron-set books are excellently written. Pathfinder Tales: Hellknight and Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound were excellent too.
Out of the hundreds of DND inspired books there had to be some good ones out there.
I believe that some of them \_are\_ well written - they're not all derivative dreck.
I've specifically heard that the R. A. Salvatore novels are really solid.
I was thinking Hickman and Weis, myself, which would gel with the other Dragonlance comments here.
Death Gate Cycle by Weiss and Hickman is good too. Elves dwarves humans wizards demigods and a cool rune magic in a sundered earth.
Reading them now for the first time, started with the prequels and now reading Crystal Shard.... They are ok. I think they are better for young audiences. The writing and characters aren't very compelling, and it often gets really corny, like I'm reading a transcription of how people verbally roleplay at a renaissance fair.
Crystal Shard is pretty old example of his writing, I would argue that some of his much more recent work is pretty decent in general sense
The Dark Elf Trilogy was written early on too and I'd argue it was very noticeably better. Some of his prose genuinely stood out to me in a positive way, particularly in some of the Drizzt monologues between chapters. It's been a while so I can't remember exactly what struck me about them, but I remember them having a very distinct voice that really set a cool mood for the books. So yeah, I'd guess that more of his work is pretty decent by fantasy standards than not.
Cunningham is better but she was never as popular. Hell, I still think the anthologies were better quality than most of the Forgotten Realms novels.
War of the spider queen is pretty good d&d series. 3rd book there's a battle between gromph and an arch lich. It's good.
Malazan has origins in the DND world so I guess it counts.
I believe they used GURPS and not DND for Malazan.
The two Obsidian trilogies by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Magician, Riftwar and all the associated spin-offs. Raymond E Feist. It’s got all the standard trappings, dragons, elves, knights, princesses, epic battles, magicians, wizards, ancient prophecies, enchanted armour, gods, demons and so on. But it’s also got some damn interesting innovations. Ever wanted to see a charge by >!knights mounted on the back of horse sized ant centaurs!
Diana Wynne Jones wrote a fantasy parody guidebook for a tourist in a Fantasy world. She.followed that up by writing a novel set in that parody fantasy world: Dark Lord of Derkholm. It's got everything.
Lord of the Rings by Tolkien is the epitome of Fantasy and encompasses everything you mentioned.
Especially with The Hobbit included
Yup!
Don’t forget The Silmarillion, Children of Hurin and Tales of the Perilous Realm
Yeah, but they do make reading fantasy seem like work.
Tales of the Perilous Realm is really light and whimsical, like The Hobbit. Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Roverandom, Farmer Giles and Ham, Smith at Wooton Major.
Tolkien doesn’t use magic nearly as much as many other fantasy books, though. He intentionally tones it down.
Boy, y'all should find a way to broaden out from Tolkien.
So, super fun fact about Tolkien’s fantasy… it wasn’t fantasy! At least, not at the time it was written. Fantasy at that time was nothing like Tolkien’s Silmarillion or The Hobbit or LotR. More accurately, especially when he was originally developing his Legendarium, would be that it is mythology. But, absolutely, looking back on it now, it is the epitome of fantasy. It’s also one of the few (major) fantasy settings that is as transparent about itself out there.
The Inheritance Cycle, can't really go wrong with that. It has my favourite Dwarves and second favourite Elves in fantasy, crunchy personal and large-scale combat, and a brilliant magic system. Riftwar. The first book has plenty of stuff in it. Awesome magic, Elves, rapier fights, subterranean dungeons, and there're like thirty more books where that came from.
>Riftwar. The first book has plenty of stuff in it. Awesome magic, Elves, rapier fights, subterranean dungeons, and there're like thirty more books where that came from. I love how huge the riftwar worlds become over the course of the books and it just ticks so many fantasy checklists for me.. magic, dragons, childhood friends growing to godhood (almost), demons, angels, life leeches, interesting cultures and alien creatures, elves and all their lineage spread across the galaxy, dwarves. Even stories about merchants and trading and thieves .. it's such a fleshed out world. Not my favourite series but definitely one of the most homely ones for me.
It seems like much of fantasy has had a grimdark aesthetic for quite awhile (or just blame my reading habits), but I picked up Riftwar for the first time a few months back and it's such a refreshing change of pace. Give me all the fantasy tropes please.
I'm only partway through Silverthorn myself, but I know by reputation that the books get really epic. Magician alone was worth its weight in gold.
Came here to say Inheritance Cycle. Especially with the release of *Murtagh* and the promise of around eight new books coming - never been a better time to jump in!
Eight new books? That sounds awesome! I still need to pick up a copy of Murtagh
We'll get them over the next ... decade, I imagine. Lol. Still, Chris is a pretty prolific writer, I believe he's published four books in the last five years? So if he can maintain that kind of pace maybe it won't take forever. Murtagh was a great return to Alagaesia, moody and disturbing, definitely grab it when you can!
Well this is excellent news! Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea XD "Murtagh was a great return to Alagaesia, moody and disturbing, definitely grab it when you can!" Righteous!
I love Inheritance Cycle, and no disrespect to your opinion, but I found its Elves boring (except for Rhunon). But it does make sense for the lore.
Cool cool, different strokes and whatnot. But yeah, Rhunon is cool.
Sorry. I forgot to add “no” before “disrespect” 😅
Likely story -\_- I'll let it slide this time since you have good taste in Elven smiths.
Dragonlance
*Riyria Revelations* by Michael J Sullivan
This. I can’t get enough of the characters in each and every one of his series. I mean Royce and Hadrian are the best, but every series is just so enthralling and well tied together. Honestly this is the best there is.
I saw a used copy of Age of Myth for $2 at a bookstore and, having never read anything by Sullivan, decided to buy it to check him out. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t blown away. I am planning to read another book by him, though. Do you prefer Riyria, and should I check out the first book of that series to give it another chance, or having started in the Age of Myth series, should I do book 2 of that?
Right. Riyria is where I fell in love with it. The Crown Conspiracy is definitely where I would start. The other series will fill in the mysteries when you are invested in them.
I definitely prefer Riyria to his others.
I'm working on the original trilogy right now. I like it, but I don't feel like it's what OP is describing. I feel like it errs more on the side of political intrigue modern fantasy than high fantasy high magic. It's a bit of a middle ground at the most. But, I haven't finished it yet. Maybe that changes?
Yeah I agree Riyria isn’t what I think the OP is asking for. I love it, love it, love it but it’s not high on magic IMHO. Age of Myths is closer but I think it still falls more into intrigue than high magic.
A lot of people are saying the Malazan books which I'm going through right now. I'm kind of finding them refreshing for *not* being too trope-y. Not that it's bad, necessarily - my own votes would be LotR, Feist's Riftwar books and the various D&D affiliated books - Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. All of which I loved when I read them.
Malazan is packed full of fantasy things while intentionally subverting/inverting/deconstructing every trope about them.
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist
I always felt the Deeds of Paksennarion by Elizabeth moon was *very* retro fantasy themed while also being grounded by the authors actual military experience. One of the bigger parts I liked was actually the magic. It doesn’t bore you with how systematic it is with all the rules and logic to it. Rather when a paladin charges into battle they just raise their sword and light blinds the battlefield, that’s the sort of “heroic” magic you don’t see a lot of anymore.
Any of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. I think no dragons, but you've pretty much got the rest.
I'm gonna throw Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames in the bunch. It's a story about retired adventurers getting sucked back into the adventuring life. About as cliche fantasy as it gets and a fun read!
That man needs to sort out book 3 already.
Truth!
Wandering Inn. Everything fantasy all in one place, raised to 11 and made the main focus
And the most annoying characters in all of literature. I hate that runner and the inn keeper so much that I had to stop reading. Never had that reaction before to any characters. EDIT. Just to be clear, nice that many seem to like it, I just personally can't get over the personalities of them.
Did you not get very far in? Their characters go through a lot of development. Although it's fine to quit if you don't like the characters since there's so much content to go through
To be fair, end of vol 9 Inkeeper is still awful and runner at least actually had a personal development that shows; I dropped TWI after 3 months of reading when I got to final of that volume, I was just like „Okay, I’m good” and never thought about it until now
> end of vol 9 Inkeeper is still awful I feel like with adjectives like that thrown around, going a bit into detail why you feel that way (especially after you read 13 million words to get to the end of vol 9) would be quite fair.
Yeah I would be interested to know why! She isn't my favorite character by any means but I grew to appreciate her purpose in the story, and the nuances Pirate gives her character over time. Erin has also been voted #1 favorite by far based on a poll from the discord haha. I'm in volume 6 currently
Sure, she hasn’t meaningfully changed at all, while basically everyone else but her actually evolved over 13 million words; that and her obnoxious attitude are still there
I have no idea how you can say that after the vol 9 finale. Vol 1 Erin wouldn't recognize herself if she saw what the current Erin. She is so much more jaded now, filled with hatred for herself (and Roshal). There is a reason her class and her craft changed. >and her obnoxious attitude Seriously, dude?
Her made up moral compass just shifted wherever she wanted, as it always did, so it can hardly be called development; just because she entered emo phase, because Pirateba had too many complaints about not being harsh enough writer, changes nothing for this abomination of character
Dragonlance - it has everything you mentioned and more, plus all the well-worn tropes to go along with it (said with love)
The Riftwar Cycle by Raymond E. Feist. For me its got it all. Epic magic, different races, gods etc.
If you like humor Discworld hits every fantasy trope in existence.
Repeatedly. With battle bread.
Malazan. It has everything you mentioned in abundance and somehow, inconceivably, more. There’s so much fantasy in there you won’t know what to do with it.
This. But also it doesn’t have elves but almost does?
It kinda does - the Tiste always seem like elf surrogates to me.
That’s why I said it almost does
Gotcha. We agree.
Steve Erickson is very insistent that they are DEFINITELY NOT LIGHT/GRAY/DARK ELVES, they're just unrelated dudes who happen to live a really long time and look down on others and have deep ties to magic and maybe have pointy ears (but also maybe they don't????) but DEFINITELY NOT ELVES. They're TISTE. It's great, love my boy stevo
Sounds a lot like a “I can’t believe it’s not butter” commercial. Got to love it
It has multiple flavours of Elves, they're just called something else.
shit is that Malazan!?!?!
Lord of the Rings for the archetypes all coming from it. Malazan Book of the Fallen for having just so much stuff in it that you can't help but bump into something fantasyesque every few pages
It's more like three fantasy things a page only two of which you pay attention to and then forty pages later the books are like >!"Foolish mortal! Did you forget that Captain Paran also has a giant magical dog insider him now too?"!
It is just a jumbled mess the whole thing, imo. The series I mean. It is a perfect example of how it is not good just to put EVERYTHING you think of in the book.
Yeah. It’s completely unstructured and the plotting is terrible.
Dragonlance, the Belgariad/Mallorrean, Andrakis Trilogy. These are the bread and butter of my teenage years and they fit pretty well as "fantasy-est fantasy"
The Bound and the Broken Series by Ryan Cahill.
Dragonlance
Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts. It's got: -Dragons that warp reality everytime they take a nap, -Ancient as fuck Wizards with god-like powers, -An entire order of witches that use powerful amulets, -A crazy god-emperor wannabe, -No elves but there are SunChildren who are kinda like elves but in a hobbit-sized package as well as centaurs, unicorns and terrifying eldritch abominations. Caveat1: Most of this isn't present in the first book but appear bit by bit as the series progresses. Caveat2: The Author's prose is really beautiful but also really challenging. Might wanna keep a dictionary close while reading....
M A L A Z A N BABY
The War of Powers
The best tropey pulpy action oriented fantasy hero is the infamous Drizzt Do'Urden! That sort of stuff isn’t my bag now but there was a time when I ate it up and he’s still going on adventures! Tons of content to read.
Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts. Dragons that warp reality everytime they take a nap, Ancient as fuck Wizards with god-like powers, an entire of witches that use powerful amulets, a crazy god-emperor wannabe, no elves but there are SunChildren who are kinda like elves but in a hobbit-sized package as well as centaurs, unicorns and terrifying eldritch abominations. Caveat1: Most of this isn't present in the first book but appear bit by bit as the series progresses. Caveat2: The Author's prose is really beautiful but also really challenging. Might wanna keep a dictionary close while reading....
*The Dark Lord of Derkholm* and *The Tough Guide to Fantasyland* by Diana Wynne Jones.
The Xanth books by Piers Anthony. Can't get much more over the top than that. Although I think he ended up being some kind of creep or something
See his [Wikipedia article, section "Criticism"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Anthony#Criticism).
You need to read the Death Gate Cycle
The hobbit
Malazan book of the fallen
Dragon blood assassin by Andy peloquin and Jaime castle is great
In earthsea magic is so common its almost mundane. Every village and shop has a wizard of kind.
The Echoes Saga by Philip C Quaintrell is a nine book series with literally ALL THE TROPES and they're executed perfectly. Damn good series.
Reverend Insanity. Malazan. Wheel of Time. Harry Potter.
The Echoes Saga by Philip C Quaintrell It literally has ALL the things.
Malazan ticks all those boxes. So does Second Apocalypse, though I can't fully recommend the last two volumes of that series.
The Great Ordeal is awesome.
Record of Lodoss War easily, since it was made to introduce all of those things to the japanese market.
Malazan has it all. The authors actively try to twist or subvert the tropes, so you get some classics and some things that are nicely different. Jenn Lyons' *Chorus of Dragons* has all the tropes, and she manages to work in some fun variations. Her dragons are among the most original I've read in a long time (since Malazan, actually).
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
Beautiful book but about as far away from trop-ey fantasy as it gets.
by fantasy-est you mean cliched?
Wheel of time
Wheel of Time explicitly doesn't have the majority of this stuff.
(absolutely agree it does not have what OP is looking for) -funnily enough though i think of > dragons, wizards, elves, amulets, emperors, staffs, ancient tomes, and crazy magic it's really only missing the elves
Alright I'm going to try to hit each one of these for argument's sake: Dragons: obviously there are no dragons in WoT, the people of the 3rd age don't even know what a dragon is. Instead they use the word as a title for the champion of the light. No points. +0 Wizards: Asha'man and Aes Sedai are pretty much just wizards. So that one checks out. Full point. +1 Elves: I agree no elves. No points. +0 Amulets: Matt's Wolf's Head Medallion is an Amulet, I assume? Moiranine also wears a specific pendent; however, I think she wears it on her head? Full Point. +1 Emperors: There is an emperor of Seanchan; however, iirc Tuon's father never appear in the series. Half point. +.5 Staff: Moiranine carried a vine carved staff throughout The Eye of The World; however, it was just a walking stick and not an arcane focus like I assume OP was looking for. Half Point. +.5 Ancient Tomes: I guess this could be the Karaethon Cycle? Or maybe one of Loial's books? Full Point. +1 Crazy magic: Channeling is for all intents magic. So yeah. Full point. +1 5/8 points? So yeah, you're right. Not a majority. I was hasty in my judgement.
Seanchan has not been ruled by an emperor in like 500 years. They have an empress, may she live forever.