Here are a bunch of books that I enjoyed that might work for you based on what you’ve already read.

Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart is the first of three books in that series, and it won the World Fantasy Award in 1985. Set in “an ancient China that never was”, it’s the story of a young peasant man who’s as strong as an ox, and an ancient sage with a slight flaw in his character. It draws on Chinese folk tales and history, as well as a bit of Sherlock Holmes. It’s a mystery with magic, humor, adventure, and it’s simply mind-blowing.

Lawrence Watt-Evans’ Ethshar is a refreshing change from the usual fantasy tropes. His protagonists are unusual for the genre in that they’re actually intelligent and decent people. They think about their challenges and make plans to deal with them - and while their plans aren’t always perfect, the forethought generally helps. That’s rare, in a genre where many novels would be less than half as long if the protagonists weren’t idiots! His writing style also has an exceptional clarity. The series begins with The Misenchanted Sword (1985). I should mention that the books in the series effectively stand alone; they feature different protagonists, and are set at different times and places in the same world. In other words, you can read one without having to read the others in order to get a complete story.

Steven Brust is quite possibly the best fantasy author currently living. His Vlad Taltos series is gritty high-fantasy; magical resurrection is common, though expensive, and psionic communication is almost as common as cell phones are in our world. At the same time it has a strong Sopranos flavor. The protagonist starts as an assassin and minor crime boss, a despised human in an Empire of elves. It starts with Jhereg (1983). I’ve introduced a lot of friends to that series, and every single one of them has loved it.

He also wrote a parallel series in the style of Alexander Dumas, set in the same universe: The Khaavren Romances. Those books are considerably thicker, and the language is practically baroque - but fun, if you like Dumas. The first book maps closely to The Three Musketeers, and is titled The Phoenix Guards (1991).

Barry Longyear’s The God Box (1989) is a fantasy about a rug merchant who gains a very strange inheritance that sends him on a trip through time as well as across the world. His travels are exciting, funny, enlightening and in the end deeply moving. He learns how to cope with his inner demons in a way that works for the reader, too. The concept of the “god box” has stuck with me ever since I read this book. I highly recommend it.

Robert Sheckley’s Store of Infinity (1960) was the first science fiction book I ever bought for myself. It was a very lucky find, because a better collection of dazzling short stories would be hard to imagine. It’s a great introduction to his work. Among the many wonderful and hysterically funny stories in this book is “The Prize of Peril”, which predicted reality TV (and its worst excesses) decades before it happened! Sheckley is arguably the O. Henry of science fiction.

I have a special place in my heart for Eric Frank Russell’s The Great Explosion (1962); in it, Russell created a world that I want to live in. It’s a funny, thought-provoking, and ultimately moving book. Hundreds of years after Earth was virtually depopulated by a mass exodus, spaceships are sent out to gather the far-flung colonies into a new empire. But the colonies, based on various splinter groups, have developed their own societies and have their own ideas. The full text of the book is available free online.

Try Leave It to Psmith (1923), by P. G. Wodehouse. It’s incredibly witty and laugh-out-loud funny. Plus it’s available free in all the major ebook formats. You can read it online for free at the same link, too.

Look up the works of Lord Dunsany. He was an early pioneer in the field of fantasy, and a major early influence on H. P. Lovecraft; his stories and plays have a fairy-tale quality that’s mesmerizing. Most of his works are now in the public domain, available free from Project Gutenberg. I would recommend starting with The Book Of Wonder (1912), A Dreamer’s Tales (1910), or Fifty-One Tales (1915).

Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling is the story of a boy coming of age in colonial India. Kipling grew up in India himself, and the sheer richness of the many cultures that Kim experiences as he travels across India and up into the lower Himalayas with a Tibetan llama is mind-blowing. Meanwhile Kim is drawn into the “Great Game” of spying between the European powers. It’s a deeply moving and beautiful book. Best of all, you can download it for free in all the major ebook formats!

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Note: Please consider patronizing your local independent book shops instead of Amazon; they can order books for you that they don’t have in stock. Amazon has put a lot of great independent book shops out of business.

And of course there’s always your local library. If they don’t have a book, they may be able to get it for you via inter-library loan.

If you’d rather order direct online, Thriftbooks and Powell’s Books are good. You might also check libraries in your general area; most of them sell books at very low prices to raise funds. I’ve made some great finds at library book sales! For used books, Biblio.com, BetterWorldBooks.com, and Biblio.co.uk are independent book marketplaces that serve independent book shops - NOT Amazon.

Happy reading! 📖

PS - Thank you. Recommending books was my favorite thing to do on Reddit, and this was my first chance to do it here.