Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Tad Williams, Koushun Takami, Patrick Rothfuss, Steven Erikson, Valerio Massimo Manfredi, David Gemmell and many others.
Sekhmet Nocturna
I love anything by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The man is god. He didn't just write a story, he created a world. He gave it languages, which he invented himself based on real languages. He gave it a history, and a mythology, even gave it a creation story. And to this day his books are the foundations for almost all modern fantasy books.
heart /fangirl moment
Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Patrick Rothfuss, Steven Erikson and many others have done the same. Tolkein was brilliant, the Godfather of epic fantasy. But he's not the end-all.