Honestly I wish we could go back to fantasy about giant hunky dudes killing evil pointy bearded sorcerers with the help of scantily clad warrior ladies.
I think you are wildly underrating the creativity of pre-Tolkien fantasy. I personally have great affection for the writing of Lord Dunsany and there are some people who really like the elements of awe in Lovecraft (to paraphrase Ramsey Campbell), but it's a wide field that I'm not really an expert on.
Pre-tolkien fantasy is like, wizard of Oz and stuff
Conan is a big one, and its DNA can still be seen in modern Tolkienien fantasy
Honestly I wish we could go back to fantasy about giant hunky dudes killing evil pointy bearded sorcerers with the help of scantily clad warrior ladies.
"And stuff" doing a lot of heavy lifting
I think you are wildly underrating the creativity of pre-Tolkien fantasy. I personally have great affection for the writing of Lord Dunsany and there are some people who really like the elements of awe in Lovecraft (to paraphrase Ramsey Campbell), but it's a wide field that I'm not really an expert on.