Personally, I have basically stopped reading since my 20s, but I used to read a ton. I like pulp fantasy and scifi and noir detectives and other nonsense, no one seems to write that sort of thing anymore. I loved Dragonlance when it was around

I don't want fantasy with "the most unique magic system ever created" or "the most complex society" I want to read about dudes and ladies with huge swords and magic killing dragons and conquering kingdoms

I get it, I'm boring but I guarantee the whole "men don't read anymore" would be less true if publishers still put out books like I'm describing

Instead when I go into a bookstore for the one time a year I shop for my wife for Christmas, I'm greeted by the likes of "Morning Glory Milking Farm"

> I want to read about dudes and ladies with huge swords and magic killing dragons and conquering kingdoms

If you're okay with these characters and kingdoms existing in vaguely-medieval China (with magically-empowered monks and Taoist-Buddhist symbolism) rather than vaguely-medieval Europe (with magically-empowered knights and Christian symbolism), then I think you'd be very happy to learn about the genre of xianxia (lit. "immortal heroes"). Unlike the Western high fantasy, xianxia fiction is at a peak of popularity right now, with tons of new stories getting published each month.

As you might guess by the name, at first this was only a literary movement in China; but these days there are tons of English-language xianxia stories as well. And they're not necessarily being written in Chinese and then translated, as you might guess; there are some Western authors writing in this genre too.

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That being said: while you can find some xianxia stories in published physical form in stores, as a "new media" genre being written mostly by younger digital-native people, most xianxia stories are first being published digitally online as serial fiction.

Among websites where these serials are published, https://wuxiaworld.com is popular for authors writing in Chinese (I believe the site offers professional translation services to authors), while https://royalroad.com is popular for authors writing in English.

Also, as a "new media" genre, these stories are "not well understood" by traditional publishers (i.e. they don't know how to market them), so these stories tend to need to achieve a very high level of popularity before the traditional publishers are willing to engage with them. So even when these authors do produce novelizations of their originally-serial stories, they often end up finding no physical publisher willing to pick them up, and instead end up self-publishing only for digital distribution through Kindle/iBooks/etc.

Bookstores aren't for you. As you've seen, they cater to a certain type of customer now. Similar to how department stores are biased to one type of customer and dedicate much more floor space to them.

There are plenty of old books in the genres you like waiting to be read. Some of them will be in digital format. None of them will be AI dreck.

Give this a try: https://www.blackgate.com

> I'm greeted by the likes of "Morning Glory Milking Farm"

The genre survived John Norman and Jack Chalker, it can handle a little sex stuff aimed at women. I haven't read that book, but I have read "In the Barn", from famous award-winning anthology "Again, Dangerous Visions" and as such one really has to lean into the dairy-themed smut for me to raise an eyebrow.

The first book in The First Law series was published in 2006 and the last in 2021, it’s kinda like pulp noir fantasy combined, I am guessing you haven’t read those based the age you listed but could be wrong.

I mean they 100% exist. Brandon Sanderson isn't some excessively complicated fantasy world (despite what fans may say, Sanderson is very approachable). Dungeon Crawler Carl is all the rage. Hell, The Locked Tomb trilogy has tons of big swords and stuff. The reason why morning glory milking farm and other smut exists on bookshelves now is that women were finding and buying the small stuff when no one gave them the time of day. If you want your stuff back on shelves, start buying them, for they 100% exists even if it's a self-publishing sword and sorcery guy.

I used to read a ton of that stuff too and I really miss it. Terry Brooks type stuff. Enjoyable adventures that focus on a small group of characters. I also don't want overly complex worlds and stories for that type of book. The rest of my life is already too complex as it is.

Dragonlance is still around. A new book came out this month, War Wizard. There's still Forgotten Realms books too. And lots of books about people in parties that aren't DnD spin-offs.