/lit/ - Literature

>>22732544
Off the top of my head...
>>Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, William Morris, George Macdonald, Dunsany, Darrell Schweitzer
Most Gemmell and Prachett novels also fit. I can already hear some dumbass yelling at the top of his lungs, "But they're part of a series!" You can read them as standalones and be perfectly fine. Just because they have connections to other books does not mean they must be read in chronological order, nor in publication order, but you can read them in any order you like. No different from picking a Conan or Solomon Kane story at random and just sitting down and enjoying it.
>>Smith, Lovecraft, Poe, Howard, Vance
All of these guys wrote stuff well under my ~300 page limit, yet their stories are much more dense and enjoyable than practically all of the longer fantasy novels/series.
>>22732548
I think it's great if an author can create characters that make me want to read more just so I can "be" with them for a little while longer. I just don't think massive series are the best format.
>>22732630
It's been a problem longer than that and still persists to this day. The fact that series like The Wandering Inn exist and people look at its massive word count and actually think it's a good thing is not a good sign. If you'd spend a single second looking at fantasy published in the past 50 years, you'd already be overwhelmed by all the series. Narrow that range to the last 20 years, then to the last 10, now to 5, you get it. It's shit and you know it. What's really funny is how people will look back at old novels where the author was paid by the word and scoff at them, but then pick up a fantasy series of 5+ entries where each book is over 500 pages long, none of which are justified in being that long.