Finding Our Way Into Fantasy Fiction: Why lazily reccing the same shit over and over turns people away from the genre

I've been reading 'fantasy' since I was 8 years old (The Hobbit), unless you count my fascination of Greek mythology that started when I was 7.

Fantasy was my first and only love re: reading until I was 17 years old. My teen years were devoted to Lord of the Rings, DragonLance, R.A. Salvatore, etc. It wasn't until I was 19-20 that I even started reading A Song of Ice and Fire (I actually found the email with my purchase; I bought Game of Thrones in the same purchase as Eye of the World, Sword of Shannara, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; I also picked up my first few Discworld books a week later, a couple months before my 20th birthday). While in school at 17 years old I fell in love with Gothic fiction (Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, Dracula, etc.), and didn't read much in terms of 20th century fantasy.

In my early/mid 20s, I finally started catching up with Game of Thrones, Kingkiller Chronicles, First Law, etc. I'm finally changing that. Over the past few years I read through the Black Company and Malazan series.

But prior to 2019, my most recent read had been published in 2011! Other than Gormenghast (the first book) and the first Elric of Melnibone novel (1972), I also hadn't read much in terms of the 'history' of fantasy.

Much of my to-read pile in 2020 is classic fantasy and recent novels. I'd love to read through N. K. Jemisin's bibliography. I just picked up the first Earthsea book and a couple Patricia McKillip novels. I haven't even read any Brandon Sanderson yet, and will this year.

The genre has expanded so much; just look at the subgenres on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fantasy_genres

My goal is to read 100 books this year (granted, I'm trying to shift my average read from 450-500 pages down to 300 or so, with a lot of classic fantasy novels coming in at 200-300 pages). I certainly hope to be able to expand my view of the genre past the narrow 'echo chamber' books.

/r/Fantasy Thread