What should I read instead of WoT?

I am looking for a great fantasy or sci-fi book/series that is truly enjoyable. 

tolkine lool11``

You could try A Song of Ice and Fire. George RR Martin puts much more action into his books and hasn't let himself get lost in plotlines. On the other hand, those books are full of rape and pedophilia and all the main characters die when you get attached to them, which is why I stopped reading.

What >>3 says.

However, I like the fact everyone is dropping like flies. It's a nice change, since it adds uncertainty. This about it: how often have you been reading a novel where the protagonist gets in a real sticker, and you think to yourself, "Well, s/he'll get out of it okay. This is the hero here."

The Drizzt series by R.A. Salvatore.

Yeah, it's a Forgotten Realms series, and thus a D&D book, but I'll be damned if you could tell that by the author's style. Kinda long, but very good read.

Try any of Poul Andersen's fantasy.  I particularly recommend, in no particular order:

Three Hearts and Three Lions
Operation Chaos
War of the Gods
A Midsummer Tempest
The Broken Sword

I also recommend Jack Vance's fantasy, particularly the Dying Earth stories:

The Dying Earth
The Eyes of the Overworld
Cugel's Saga
Rhialto the Marvellous

and his Lyonesse trilogy:

Lyonesse
The Green Pearl
Madouc

I also recommend any and all the Robert E. Howard stories you can find; he's the author who created Conan the Barbarian back in the 1920s.  A lot of his stuff is still in print.  Just be careful and look for his name on the cover.  The "Conan" name was licensed out and lots of imitators wrote what amounts to legal fanfic featuring Howard's characters, and the quality, um, varies.  Look for his Conan stories, his Solomon Kane stories, and his stories of Bran Mak Morn.

Lastly, I recommend the Elric series by Michael Moorcock.

All the material I'm recommending has a few things in common.  It's all exceedingly well written, in my opinion, head and shoulders above the D&D crap that fills the shelves at your local big chain bookstore; these are the fantasy authors whose prose does not cause me physical pain, and I would not be ashamed to recommend them to an English major.  They're also rather darker in tone than what you may be accustomed to, and (if I may paraphrase Bruce Sterling) if you're the sort of person who wants to be a unicorn, or you want to have a dragon for a friend, you should stay away from these books lest you have a mental toxic reaction and fall over dead.

I must admit I've never read any of George R. R. Martin's fantasy but his science fiction from thirty years ago was dark and compelling; anyone who reads his fantasy may want to look for his collection of 1970s science fiction short stories, "A Song for Lya."

Amber Chronicles

>>3 And midget sex. Gotta mention midget sex.