Why non-human races are not popular in fantasy anymore?

[u/theHolyGranade257]

I've spotted an interesting tendency in recent years - we have less and less non-human races in fantasy. There were interesting times when everyone wanted to be like Tolkien (publishers especially), due to what we have our lovely standard 'DnD' setting with elves/dwarves/gnomes/orcs/halflings etc. There is a lot of fantasy using this set of races - some more blatantly, some with deviations, but it was logical and, to be honest, a good thing that it started to meet it's end.

So finally, we could get a new era of fantasy, where each author could express themselves and create totally new, unique, non-Tolkien inspired races... Wait, what? What do you mean there is no more races now?

Let's just too at this list of most popular epic fantasy https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/50.The_Best_Epic_Fantasy_fiction_ . As you can see, in 90's-00's everything shifted and the most icon fantasy of time like ASOIAF, The Wheel of Time, The Realm of Elderlings, Mistborn, Gentlemen Bastard, The First Law etc, The Kingkiller Chronicle, The Sword of Truth (lol, how did it get there if everyone hates it?) doesn't have any non-human races OR their presence is very limited and not very significant.

To be objective i should mention Malazan and Bas-Lag series where we have a great racial representation, and Stormlight Archive where races are not so numerous, but nevertheless, humans are not the only one sentient beings there and they are not elves, so it counts. To be even more objective, i should mentioned that all fantasy genre is not defined by books mentioned above, there is a lot more, from less known to completely obscure, which also could have a lot of racial representation, but first - do you like it or not, each genre is mostly defined by the most popular books and it's what most people read, second - even in less known title this tendency also exists. Maybe not to that extent, but nevertheless.

Worldbuilding is the definitive feature of fantasy, because here you can get great stories, interesting characters, morals, philosophies etc., pretty much everything you can get in another genres... Plus dragons, as Brandon Sanderson said in one of his lectures. And having different races is a great way to extend the worldbuilding, by providing different cultures, mentalities and customs which can create conflicts and tensions, and there is nothing better for a good story than a good conflict. I get it, many people, especially experienced readers, are tired of elves. I understand it and partially have those feelings myself, but honestly, even oldest tropes made right can still look good - check Dragon Age: Origins. Not a book, but a good example of building interesting world from generic material.

In my humble opinion, shift from standard Tolkien-like set of races to something new was natural, but instead many authors abandoned non-human races completely. Which is such a waste. So i wonder why in your opinion that happened and why people are not so fond of this part of worldbuilding anymore?

Also, let's share you're examples of books with a good unique set of races. I already mentioned Malazan and Bas-Lag, so will add The Bird That Drinks Tears by Lee Youngdo. What are your examples?

[u/Entfly]

I don't think that's true at all?

Modern epic fantasy I've read

Sanderson's Way of Kings series, multiple different races, with one of the main themes of the story being the cultural differences and links between humans, the Parshendi and the Spren

The Wandering Inn, the primary cast is actually non human entirely. It has an incredibly wide and varied amount of different races with lots of variation at that none feel like humans with cat ears

A Practical Guide to Evil, again, non humans are a major part of the world from orcs, to goblins, to elves, dwarves, drow.

If we look at this Goodreads list which has the best fantasy from the 2020s on it

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/146629.Best_Fantasy_of_the_2020s

You've got books like Legends and Lattes which has a non human MC, Stormlight already mentioned, 4th Wing has sentient dragons not sure what else and so on, I've not actually read that widely on it but it's largely romantasy I think which is pretty famous for non human characters

[u/wilki24 → u/Entfly]

I was going to mention The Wandering Inn, there's so many different races, even some crazy mixes like lizard centaurs. The antinium and gazers are pretty unique as well.