Fantasy - Part 2

With newer works now made bold with Tolkein's success with critics and the mass audience, one just has to mention Ursula Le Guin's feminist works (Earthsea series) and Katherine Kurtz (I still haven't finished her biblio-discography (is that a word?? i.e. all the books she wrote))
Around the time I was born, you had Terry Goodkind and Terry Brooks, both wrote masterpieces in the epic fantasy genre.
More recently, you have satirical fantasy like Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt. Newer fantasy authors write grittier works, some spanning entire centuries like The Malazan books by Steven Erikson, George R.R. Martin. Some have hundreds of characters like Robert Jordan, some just have one, like Patrick Rothfuss in his debut first-person work of art The Name of the Wind.
The decade, the biggest growth has been in strong female leads in action-oriented roles, a genre called Urban Fantasy. Key authors to look out for are Patricia Briggs, Kim Harrison, Ilona Andrews, and of course, Kelley Armstrong.

Currently, some brilliant books are spanning the bridge between fantasy and fiction readers, like Jim Butcher, China Meiville, and Neil Gaiman. I dont really know what category they fit in, but any reader would love them!