To be honest, I didn’t have much in the way of specific memories. Just a vague sense of dullness.
Actually, there was one clever bit:
The good guys realize at some point late in the series that the prophecy that they’ve been following, which is all about gathering up these 3 magical swords, is in fact a prophecy about how the BAD GUYS can wipe out all of humanity.
No one has said “none of them?” I have read most of the series listed this thread and none stand out to me as clearly superior.
IMHO there are a lot of series that might qualify if the quality of the first book held up throughout. Earthsea is probably the best example.
ASOIAF is pretty slow for much of the first book though, so I can understand how a lot of people get bored with it.
I think Mieville is a very interesting, inventive writer. But I gotta say, strange as it may seem from someone who likes Martin, Mieville is cruel to his characters in a way that veges on the off-putting for me. I have a friend who I loaned Perdido Streeet Station, which he thought was a great book - right up until the end. Now he refuses to ever read any Mieville ever again ( and he too is a fan of Martin ).
I’m nowhere near that hardcore, but I understand the impulse. Also Mieville’s large back-cover photo on my copy of PSS just seems to SCREAM pretentious edgier-than-thou hipster :p.
But I agree that The Scar is really very good. Haven’t managed to get to into Iron Council yet. It sits on my shelves, mocking me.
I really enjoyed Sanderson’s *Mistborn *series, in no small part because it was titghly plotted with few (if I’m remembering correctly) unresolved plot points, and, although the characters were bought in a job-lot from The Big Trope Warehouse, I was surprised by how the whole thing ended.
This looks like damming with faint praise, but I did actually really enjoy them, and would highly reccomend them.
I also really liked Sherwood Smith’s Inda quartet. They’re low-magic, but fairly epic in scope.
I find Mieville very hit-or-miss. I liked, but did not love, Perdido Street Station, loved The Scar, found the Iron Council a dead bore, and I simply couldn’t get into his latest at all.
He’s endlessly inventive, but not always in ways that make for an entertaining story, at least not for me.
Bujold, Kay Hobb, and Abraham are easily better for me. Paladin of Souls is one of my favorite books ever, so it’d be hard for me not to rate Bujold higher than almost anyone except maybe the Sarantium duo by Kay which is exquisite.
The Name of the Wind was very good, but I haven’t read the next book. I think some were disappointed.
I need to reread the Outremer books by Chaz Brenchley, but I remember loving them.
The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix qualifies, I think. The first book especially is knock-your-socks-off good.
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is spectacular. Prydain is excellent.
Greg Keyes’s The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone are incredible for three books and disappointed me with the fourth.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn hasn’t really stuck but I remember loving it.
Yeah, I get that. I don’t find it off-putting, however. His stories are tragic, but not tragic in a Shakespearian sense, rather in a sense of Doesn’t Life Suck? There’s no meaning behind the suffering for Mieville. Life just has a fair share of suffering in it. And when momentous events occur, the suffering can be horrific.
Unlike a lot of folks, I enjoyed Iron Council (although it has fewer memorable bits for me than the other Bas Lag books). I though King Rat and Un Lun Dun were his weakest books (the latter I actively dislike). Kraken is pretty fun; The City and The City isn’t epic fantasy, but it is perhaps the best urban fantasy I’ve ever read and quite a mindfuck of a read. I’m looking forward to Embassyville or whatever the latest is called.
I think some people are missing the point of the OP, though. It’s not just to list every epic fantasy series that’s good. If you think ASoIaF sucks, then the OP’s task is trivial and not particularly interesting; it’s only interesting if you think ASoIaF is a great series.
Reno Nevada caused me to remember that four of the best epics are very old. Try the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Beowulf.
Possible strategy there: skip past the opening section. Read the section titled “Amanuensis” (I believe it is). Then stop. Congratulations, you’ve just read the good-parts version.
The first part, as much as it pains me to say it, reads so much like a D&D campaign log that I practically can picture the NPCs with little exclamation points over their heads (to mix a metaphor).
The Aeneid is terrible[1]. Aeneas is such a total Mary Sue.
[1] In English translation, anyway; I’ve heard that the Latin poetry is good as poetry, but can’t judge.
I like Beowulf. I am a third through the Aeneid (Ruden translation, which I quite like) and like it (and don’t really think Aeneas is a Mary Sue, though he’s definitely a bit coddled). The Iliad I absolutely hated. Hm. For many of the reasons that I don’t adore GRRM, actually – it’s too gritty and too much extraneous blood and guts and everyone is so whiny! So, huh, might be good for real hard-core GRRM fans 
I have the Fagles translation of Odyssey but haven’t read it yet.
Hm, I seem to have missed Reno Nevada’s post – gotta go read Orlando Furioso, which I’ve been meaning to do. And, of course, these posts remind me: how could I have possibly forgotten my absolute second favorite (after LOTR) epic fantasy, La Divina Commedia? Dante is definitely no Mary Sue!
Thank you! Yes, this was the point, and thanks for getting it Although I have to say I’m rather enjoying all the books people are pointing out, and extending my reading list thereby.
The ironic thing about the OP is that I don’t actually read too many Epic Massive Brick fantasies any more, except for ones (like GRRM) that I’ve already started. It’s more that I’m curious what people would lend to their friends who loooove ASoIaF to convince the friends that there’s better stuff out there (if, indeed, you think there’s better stuff out there). For me, that’s Abraham for sure, but not so much LOTR or Voigt, even though I personally adore both of those and think they’re much superior – but I’m pretty sure a die-hard GRRM fan wouldn’t.
I’m still too busy mourning over Jaran to move on to Crown of Stars.
Eh, Flewelling’s writing and plotting is just average. If she didn’t play with gender and sexuality I think she’d get stuck in the average fantasy writer bargain bin. I never finished the final book of the Tamir Trilogy, since the main gender/sex issue was resolved it became a blah sort of ‘fight to get the throne back!’ book.
All my favourite fantasy books are guilty pleasure reading, so I’ll refrain from getting into them.
Yeah, the first three were great. The fourth is so mediocre and the ending was so rushed i can’t recommend reading the series.
Might some of your guilty pleasures include the series that began with Kushiel’s Dart? I read it after devouring GRRM’s series; didn’t continue through the series but might some day. (Tanith Lee is my long-time favorite for swooning decadence.) How odd that several reviews excerpted on the cover compared the novel to GRRM’s & JRRT’s series; really, all of those worlds are very different from each other.
Have you read Ellen Kushner?
My favourites are probably the Corum “Swords Trilogy” and the Hawkmoon “History of the Runestaff” quadrilogy by Michael Moorcock.
I read Swordspoint, but found the perspective too distant from the characters and I never got emotionally invested in them. It’s funny, I bought A Game of Thrones like 10 years ago, but a month after that I was browsing the bookstore and found Kushiel’s Dart and went off on this LGBT fantasy detour and never got back to ASoIaF. Anne Bishop, Storm Constantine, Lynn Flewelling, Kate Elliott (buy book because it’s on LGBT reading list, fall in love with heterosexual couple, that’s so me), Carol Berg, Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett, Jim Grimsley, Mercedes Lackey.
I’ve wanted to get into Sarah Monette and Robin Hobb because they’re so big in fandom circles, but I’ll cop to being much more interested in relationships than fantasy worlds. The emotional payoff comes too late with Melusine and the Fool books and I couldn’t get into them.
I also have fandom issues with Naomi Novik so I stay away from there.
Well, I don’t give a fuck in hell about “fandom issues” & really enjoyed the latest Temeraire novel.