This is honestly really cool and I was thinking only weeks ago how I wished there was a resource like this. I am not often a fiction reader because I find the characters frustratingly stupid or the situations unrealistically easy in pretty much every fantasy book. Wheel of Time is full of characters making decisions so rash and stupid that it's hard to imagine someone in real life ever doing it. The main character is thrusted into greatness and power without any effort and continues to do great things with little effort. This is a common trait in most fantasy books.
When I read fantasy, I want something inventive and clever in a setting I find interesting. HPMOR had a fair share of silly parts and the author seems a bit full of himself, but it was overwhelmingly the most intelligent fantasy writing I've ever read (an admittedly small sample size). It's sad that my favorite piece of fiction writing was a Harry Potter fanfiction.
Based on what you are saying, I would recommend reading some Japanese manga. Manga follows a different story structure from western fiction. In western fiction you usually start the story with conflict. The main characters resolve the conflict and the story is over. Manga follows the Chinese epic structure where you start off with a section that simply defines the rules of the universe and introduces you to the characters. Often it is quite light and humourous. About halfway through the crisis develops. Quite often this is rather hard on the reader because something incredibly nasty happens to their now beloved characters. The rest of the story talks about how the characters resolve the conflict.
The main advantage of this story structure is that by setting up the rules at the beginning and spending a great deal of time introducing the characters, you have the opportunity to examine the actions of the characters in the conflict section knowing their constraints. That way the actions and reasoning are much easier to follow and to relate to.
I'd like to give you advice on what to read, but I tend to enjoy fairly childish, light stuff ;-) Although not fantasy, Barefoot Gen is pretty amazing (should be on everybody's reading list IMHO). I don't personally like it, but Akira is also quite good.
Interesting, but not entirely true. The classic western "hero journey" also starts with a brief explanation of the world and its rules. Otherwise, it would be impossible to grasp the conflict at all.
It's hard to give recommendations because the stuff I read is probably not what most people would like ;-) Especially, I tend to like sports manga which is pretty far from fantasy. (Currently Yowamushi Pedal is fuelling my cycling addiction!)
I mentioned Barefoot Gen, which is a very early manga and a classic that is actually taught in Japanese schools. It's not fantasy, though. It tells the story of the author's experiences around the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
For fantasy things, Full metal alchemist is an alternate-earth scenario with magic. It is extremely good. One thing that doesn't actually fit the epic story format because it is a series of short stories is Mushishi. I highly recommend it, although I've only watched the anime. Akira is a cyber-punk, distopian future manga which is very highly acclaimed. Personally, it is not my taste, but it is excellent. Another interesting manga which has no actual heroes is Death Note. It's another one I don't like because all of the characters are really nasty, but some people really, really like it for that reason. I asked my wife (who is Japanese) for a suggestion and she mentioned Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes). I haven't read it but Wikipedia indicates it was originally a series of novels. It seems Viz publishes both the novels and manga in English. Ghost in the Shell is a very good sci-fi manga, but I have to admit that it is years since I looked at it, so I can't really remember it.
One manga which I love is actually a baseball manga called Touch. If you read that, you will see the manga story structure very easily.
I started reading manga as a means to learn Japanese. At the time I had only a passing interest in graphic novels and comics. Over time I got quite hooked on it. But I only read in Japanese, so I tend to read things which are quite easy. There are very complex manga stories which are aimed at adults, but unfortunately I haven't spent much time looking at those things.
Of course the 2 current most popular mangas aimed at young boys is Naruto and One Piece. Naruto just finished. It has some very powerful moments and the story is quite good. I've found that there are quite a lot of useful ideas that you can take away from the story and apply to your own life. However, the characters are one-dimensional (on purpose, I think) so I suspect it wouldn't appeal to the original poster. One Piece is also quite good (the first chapter is actually really worth reading on it's own and can stand by itself even if you don't read anything else). Again, it is aimed at a young audience and the characters are very static. There are some extremely moving moments, though.
Hope that helps a bit. As I said, it's hard to give recommendations because some people will look at that list and probably absolutely hate some of the things on there. There is an unbelievably massive amount of manga being written and I truly believe there is something for every taste. However, the examples above are pretty easy to find in English and are all quite famous. If they don't meet your taste, I hope you'll explore a bit further on your own.
> When I read fantasy, I want something inventive and clever in a setting I find interesting. HPMOR had a fair share of silly parts and the author seems a bit full of himself, but it was overwhelmingly the most intelligent fantasy writing I've ever read
I really enjoyed it too. While not everything was perfect, it's better than a lot of stuff I've paid for.
I remember really enjoying some of the early points where there are jabs at what characters do in fiction generally. Very nice reading something and not thinking "Aaargh, you idiot! No, don't split up! NO GO AND CALL SOMEONE WHO DEALS WITH THIS STUFF!" and "What? Don't destroy the... no, NO GO AND SPEAK TO A PROPER ARCHAEOLOGIST".
> It's sad that my favorite piece of fiction writing was a Harry Potter fanfiction.
That shouldn't be sad. The quality of fanfiction varies as much as the quality of content across the Internet in general: it ranges from horrendous to incredible. The existence of the horrendous doesn't in any way negate the incredible. Some of the best stories I've read (in any medium) are fanfiction, including HPMoR.
"The main character is thrusted into greatness and power without any effort and continues to do great things with little effort."
This perfectly describes my reaction to Ender's Game, except Ender is also smug and arrogant about it as well. Nobody grows or overcomes anything in the entire book.
That and everyone believing Card invented manoeuvre warfare annoys me.
When I read fantasy, I want something inventive and clever in a setting I find interesting. HPMOR had a fair share of silly parts and the author seems a bit full of himself, but it was overwhelmingly the most intelligent fantasy writing I've ever read (an admittedly small sample size). It's sad that my favorite piece of fiction writing was a Harry Potter fanfiction.