To elaborate: I do enjoy fantasy in video games and movies. I love Final Fantasy Tactics, Dark Souls, Legend of Zelda. Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite things, period, and I love Studio Ghibli as much as the next person. But I can't stand written fantasy. I don't have the patience for the infodumping prologues or the descriptions of "magic systems" or whatever. All that I care about is good characters. I thought the remedy to this would be magical realism, but I'm gonna be honest… I can't stand that, either. Something like One Hundred Years of Solitude is, for me, a weird middle ground between "literary" fiction and fantasy, where things kinda just happen for no reason, to be quirky.
I have enjoyed Neil Gaiman's American Gods and The Hobbit (though not Lord of the Rings) – I'm not really sure if this information can help you find me something closer to my ideal style of fantasy.
by blossom-
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*The Black Tongued Thief* by Christopher Buehlman is a fun book that just happens to be fantasy. A thief, a warrior, and a mage set off on a journey from point A to point B to bring someone from point B to point C. The narrator is pretty funny. It’s like being stuck on an airplane sat beside an excellent storyteller and you’ve both had a few drinks.
If you like Pan’s Labyrinth, you could go for magical realist authors like Graham Joyce, Isabel Allende, or Sara Gran. The House of the Spirits is a trip, start to finish, and might be a good genre introduction.
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Sleeping Giant
I think you would like the dreamy fairytale logic of Patricia Mckillip.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Whynne Jones is a classic. Her Dark Lord of Derkholm is a loving parody of old fantasy movie and game tropes.
Curse of Charlion by Lois Bujold is another good one with no real magic system just a guy trying to save his student.
The Dark Tower by Stephen King.
There is no prologue. It just jumps right into “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”
The magic system is never really explained. It just tells you what happens as it is used.
The little bit of backstory is told through dialogue, a flashback, or just explained as “the world has moved on”.
On top of all of that, it has some of the best characters in fantasy.
I am also not a fantasy reader for similar reasons and have had luck with stuff that’s off the beaten path from the mainstream parts of the genre. One I really enjoyed and have recommended several times is Spear That Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. No info dumps or magic systems, only beautiful writing and unique storytelling.
Ursula K Le Guin books, or something down the middle between literary and fantasy like David Mitchell might also hit the spot for you
Game of Thrones works for me.
I was taken aback by how much I enjoyed Norylska Groans by Clayton W. Snyder and Michael R. Fletcher. I took a chance on it because the eponymous city reminded me of Frostpunk. The novel I got was fantasy lite and gritty as hell.
Try out the **Thraxas** series by Martin Millar. It’s about a drunk and stupid private eye in a fantasy setting.
Unconventional Heroes by LG Estrella.
Think Suicide Squad with a necromancer named Timmy and a scared bureaucrat whose go to fighting method is throwing squids, pans, or pogo sticks at the monsters.
A Song of Ice and Fire series. Though it’s increasingly likely it won’t be finished, so keep that in mind. But it’s an awesome series.
*The Thief of Always* by Clive Barker
*Kraken* by China Mieville
*Bone* by Jeff Smith
Ok, so high/epic fantasy might not be your thing, which is heavy on the intense magic systems thing (I say despite not having the most extensive experience with it). Magic realism is kinda the extreme opposite, so I kinda see why you were thinking that. There’s still fantasy books that are low magic or soft systems without going the magic realism route, so maybe more that so the focus is more characters within the funky new world over how shit works?
I’m a big fan of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, though it’s been a few years since my last read so I don’t remember how deep the character focus goes, considering it’s a middle grade book. (But it’s disturbingly deep, works for all ages.)
Retellings as a subgenre does occasionally bring some neat elements and isn’t usually heavy on the magic systems, so might I suggest: Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust, Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, and The Golem and the Jinni (more folklore based).
Maybe a teeny weeny bit of a stretch, but Odin’s Child by Siri Pettersen (Norwegian YA fantasy based on Norwegian folklore).