* Martha Wells
I've previously reviewed her, but everything she writes is still great. The only thing I can add to my last post is her new series, Murderbot Diaries about a lovable yet emotionally damaged cyborg who works as a bodyguard. I've seen it called an "IT Thriller" because it has a lot of computer-hacking.
* Terry Mancour
Spellmonger Series: I can only describe this as Lord of the Rings meets Dune... He has somehow managed to re-invent a Tolkien-esque fantasy world from the ground up, in a way that makes it seem so fresh that I'm surprised when I recognize his creations as classical fantasy tropes halfway through. The classic story elements of Necromancers, Elves, and Dwarves are re-built and characterized from the ground-up. The present fantasy world is unified with the SciFi remnants of older civilizations in probably the best and most coherent SciFi/Fantasy blending I've ever seen. The series of chalk full of politics on the order of Dune, and every book features some level of medieval institution that gets torn down and re-constituted with an in-depth examination of how Feudalism works in practice. I feel like reading the institutional analysis and flux in this series has leveled up my understanding of institutional politics and changed the way I think about other fantasy settings.
* Christopher G. Nuttall
Schooled in Magic: This is an isekai-style magic-school series, where a girl from Earth starts introducing Earth-knowledge to revolutionize the medieval fantasy world that had previously been relying on decaying institutions maintained by magic. This is probably the best fantasy magic-school series I've ever read. He's 24 books in now, and the characters have all graduated and gotten caught-up in larger social issues. Besides the adventures, the series also examines the various social changes that take places paralleling similar historical developments on Earth like the Industrial Revolution, and how various crises formed or were averted.
The Zero Enigma: Another magic-school series (this time without an isekai) where civilization has been reconstructed from the remnants of a fallen empire. This series focuses a lot more on inter-house style politics and coming-of-age story-lines than Schooled in Magic, and the mechanics of the magic is much less of a focus. Not quite as good as Schooled in Magic in my opinion, but the story is still growing into it's larger world-changing issues.
A Learning Experience: A bunch of Libertarians on Earth get advanced technology create a Libertarian utopia in space and then end up in inter-galactic wars. It's been a long time since I read this, and the books jumped forward in time to watch how the society evolved with new characters, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I remember liking it.
* T. Kingfisher
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking: The funniest coming-of-age fantasy story I've ever read.
Minor Mage: A boy gets sent on a quest to save his town because he was all they had. Somehow he manages to use his meager abilities to great effect.
* Kanata Yanagino
The Faraway Paladin: Another isekai story, where the protagonist spends his childhood training to become a Paladin under the tutelage of undead legends. The author is clearly an Ursula K. Le Guin fan, and this series has an unusually in-depth and positive treatment of the personal side of religion and the value of dedication.
* S.J. Ryan
The Star Wizards Trilogy: A man from the post-singularity future finds himself on a primitive world fighting a remnant from his old world. This has very unique world-building, although it was at times hard for me to follow as I had to fill in some of the details. But the interplay of future technology and trying to transplant modern values across cultures was great, as well as the exploration of what a post-singularity world would look like. I blow through a lot of random one-off self-published books on Kindle and forget about them, but the first book of this intrigued me so much I kept checking back until there was a sequel.
Timesense: A novella about aliens who perceive time very differently. I can't say more without spoiling it but it blew my mind.
* Okina Baba
So I'm a Spider, So What?: A isekai light-novel where Japanese school-girl is reborn as a Spider in a dungeon, and has to level-up her abilities to survive and find a way out. There are a lot of moving parts in this novel that slowly come together to reveal a picture of how the world is broken, and honestly I wish they'd focus on the spider-girl more than the rest of the characters, but still one of my all-time favorites.
* Dojyomaru
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom: A Japanese civil-servant is isekai'ed into a fantasy kingdom and promptly made King, where he tries to salvage and modernize it's corrupt bureaucracy. I enjoy the politics more than the slice-of-life subplots, but the interplay between the individual "Great Men" and how that translates into national and international politics is great.
* J. P. Valentine
This Trilogy is Broken: Hilarious parody of classic fantasy quests.
The Nothing Mage: I have only vague memories of this series, but I remember liking the meta-magic.
* Cath fach
Erryn's world: A dungeon recreates the world after an apocalypse, and wants an isekai'ed boy to judge it.
* Becky Chambers
Wayfarers: Deep soul-searching science-fiction stories about the meaning of individuals and the bonds between them
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