I’m curious what you think it does that’s so good, I read the first one because a friend really liked it and I just found it competently written epic fantasy. In contrast I remember reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson and thinking I had never read that combination of Black Company style moral ambiguity and a world with deep history before, and really wanting to read more. Or A Game of Thrones where the writing was just so good.

Hah, I love this because it demonstrates just how different people's tastes can be. A Song of Ice and Fire did not jive with me: I felt like Martin's writing style got real old real quick (killing characters started to feel like a crutch) and the story just couldn't keep my attention anymore around book four.

But to each their own, that's what makes the world spin!

You indirectly nailed the biggest reason why I stopped reading that series. Once it became clear virtually every character would be quickly axed, I could no longer invest emotionally in any of the new characters.

(It took me awhile to get into audiobooks; I had to start with books with a good first person narrative and work my way up to the third person. I don't know if the writing style of Gardens of the Moon just doesn't work with audiobooks or if it's just something you have to play really close attention to, but every so often I find myself going "Wait, where did the last set of people in the story go? Who are these new people and how is this related to the story that was being told earlier?")

I couldn't even get through the first volume of the Wheel of Time series...

I'd also recommend the Licanius Trilogy in the same vein -- it's one of the best pieces of time travel fiction, while also having a solid emotional journey for the protagonist to go through with fate, loss and regret.

Ryiria was also published entirely over the last ten years, unless Google is deceiving me.

The Science Fiction I've enjoyed the most over the last ten years (everything by Julie Czerneda) was mostly written more like 10-20 years ago, although the second Web Shifters and the Reunification trilogy were more recent.

Aside from that, the big thing of the last ten years for me has been LitRPG. I can't get enough of it, good, bad, high-concept, self-referential, explicitly game-like or incidentally.

1. Books where the main character is a person playing a (VR) game. Travis Bagwell's Awaken Online is a good example of this.

2. Books where it starts off as a game, but then becomes real. Sometimes it's getting pulled into a game world magically (Rachel Aaron's Forever Fantasy Online, Aleron Kong's The Land). Sometimes it's getting uploaded into a game world (James Hunter's Viridian Gate Online, Dakota Krout's Ritualist). Sometimes it's a game world and a magical world getting cross-linked (James Hunter's Rogue Dungeon, Drew Hayes' NPCs).

3. Books where the world is just the world, but it runs like a RPG (video) game. People have classes and levels. Frequently they have an inventory, go on quests, gain experience. People will even see pop-up notifications and see and navigate menus only they can see related to their classes and abilities. Frequently there are dungeons full of monsters. Anything by Jonathan Brooks usually falls into this category. Full Murderhobo by Dakota Krout.

4. Books where the world is basically a game world, but the rough edges have been sanded off. You basically have classes, levels and experience but the author attempts to justify it with the metaphysics of the world. You don't have explicit quests or popups or anything like that, but you may still have dungeons and adventurers. Dakota Krout's Dungeon Born is a good example of this.

Most novels there aren't really good, but every once in a while you can find something great. And they are free to read.

I'll recommend 4 novels:

Vainqueur the Dragon: pretty good and it is completed although I never finished it.

Path of the Dragon Mage: also good, the author uploads about 10 new chapters with around 2k-2.5k words each month.

Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4: a great LitRPG and Xianxia parody. But it is in indefinite hiatus with no news from the author.

The Power of Ten: In my to-read list.

What you can often do is read the first 5 or so chapters of a novel and see if you like it. After all, they are free. There are also lots of reviews.

Another place you could look in is: https://www.webnovel.com/tags/system-novel although I haven't really checked it out and I think later chapter of the novels are locked.

I read an enormous amount of science fiction and fantasy and didn't even recognize more than 10% of the authors on their list.