I haven't read a lot of the series you have read (some, but not many), so this is kind of a stab in the dark for me! These aren't in any order, really, just as I thought of them.
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
The Goblin Emperor is the antithesis of grimdark. It's sweet and hopeful and optimistic and humane and an absolute breath of fresh air in the midst of all the dark-and-darke elements that fantasy so often presents. It's one of my favorite novels in recent memory, and the protagonist in particular is a stand-out.
Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Start here:
If you like those, you should continue with The Warrior's Apprentice. You could also go with the omnibus editions; if you go that route then you should start with the collection Cordelia's Honor which includes both Shards of Honor and Barrayar.
World of the Five Gods series, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Excellent character-driven fantasy. It is followed by several other novels and novellas set in the same world, some of which take place around the same time and some of which take place hundreds of years earlier or later. It's a series where it isn't at all necessary to read straight through; each one is self-contained.
quinkles suggested this to me when I solicited him for reading ideas, and it was fantastic so you should also try it. It is a series that gets much better over the different books, or at least I thought so. McKillip also has a wonderfully light touch with her prose, and some of the best depictions of magic in fantasy. It manages to capture that feeling that a lot of fantasy strives for, of seeming to be something out of myth or legend.
Fantastic debut novel that came out a few years ago. It's a great blending of historical fiction, folkltale, myth, urban fantasy, and coming-to-america immigrant's tale. Personally I felt that the ending was a
bit weak, but it only knocked it out of the running for "one of my favorite books ever" and had to settle for merely being one of my favorite books of the year. Tragic, I know.
A novel about the return of English magic (and also racial and gender oppression), as told through the eyes of two rival magicians in England during the Napoleonic Wars. It's probably the best representation of "magic" in fantasy that I've read, specifically of capturing that feeling of
the numinous. It's a tremendously difficult thing to do; for me only a bare handful of authors have made magic feel
magical in that way, and JS&MN is probably the best at it. It's also cleverly written, thematically dense, and blackly humorous!
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell also had a BBC television adaptation recently, and while it is a lot of fun it doesn't do quite do justice to the book.
Fairyland (series), by Catherynne M. Valente
Exactly what it says on the tin. It's charming, intelligent, and absolutely delightful. Personally, I think the author does the best job describing it, so if you want to be sold on it you
should read what she said about it.
A Dirge for Prester John (series), by Catherynne M. Valente
If you enjoy Fairyland but want something written with an adult (not in the crude sense, just the reading-level sense) audience in mind! She also talked about the first novel in this series, A Habitation for the Blessed,
here.
I know you don't like Rothfuss so just ignore that quote on the front. The Last Unicorn is a beautiful, whimisical, melancholic little fairy tale of a novel, the sort of story that stays with you after you've read it. It's a classic.
Another classic! If you have seen the Disney film The Sword in the Stone, it's actually a surprisingly faithful treatment (all things considered) of the first quarter of the book. But it doesn't include the rest of the book, with its much richer emotional palette. If you like it, it should also inspire you to read Helen MacDonald's H is for Hawk, which prominently features T.H. White.
The Book of the New Sun is actually probably
not the Gene Wolfe fantasy novel I would recommend starting with - that would be
The Fifth Head of Cerberus - but it is his magnum opus so I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't feature it prominently. It's dense, allusive, challenging, and sometimes difficult at a glance to tell if you are reading fantasy or science fiction. You will probably be able to tell if it is the kind of book that will grab you within a paragraph, depending on how you take to the prose. The prose stylistically mirrors the storytelling, so if you dislike the former you probably won't like its approach to the latter.
The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are Ursula K. Le Guin's two best science fictions, at least that I've read. I am also partial to The Word for World is Forest, but I think it is a step below these.
And I can't possibly forget the Earthsea books. I have only read the first three (which were fantastic), but I have it on good authority that the others are also good. It also has that effortless sense of timelessness, of being something out of myth or legend, that some of my other favorites have.
Jeff VanderMeer's best book. You
may have some lunatics who try to tell you that you should read The Southern Reach trilogy first, but you shouldn't listen to Vanessa; read his best first. I can't tell from what you've listed if you have any interesting in weird fiction or new weird fiction, but if you aren't sure this is probably the best place to start. It isn't a novel so much as it is a fictional world constructed through short stories, fictional histories and bibliographies and natural history, with a healthy dash of postmodernism and Lovecraftian (but that's to be expected) horror thrown in.
Jesuits ... IN SPACE! It
sounds ridiculous (and the premise kind of is), but if you accept the premise that Jesuits managed to get a spaceship to travel to a distant planet and meet the natives and you can just go along for the ride it's definitely worth it.
If you looked at The Once and Future King and thought, "Okay, maybe I'd like to try Arthurian fiction but I'd rather read it as historical fiction set in fifth-century Britain and not some weirdly anachronistic medieval pastiche," this is what you were looking for. The first three books are the Merlin trilogy; I haven't actually finished the rest of the series out myself so I can't say how it ends. But the first three are wonderful.
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I could probably think of more but it really is getting late and this is probably enough.
