Bujold. Bujold, Bujold, Bujold.

Grab the nearest book by her. She's written several series, but every book also functions as a stand-alone, and if you delay the joy of reading her by trying to track down books from the 1980s, you'll be delaying the utter delight of the people she writes about.

She started with space opera, (The Vorkosigan series) she's now mostly writing fantasy, but not the sort you'd expect after reading "The Lord of the Rings." I've seen her "Five Gods" series described as "speculative theology" by actual theologians. It is vibrant and imaginative and utterly delightful.

She's won as many Hugo awards as Heinlein, with a somewhat smaller set of works, and she's still working, mostly at self-published shorter e-books that let her get more royalties and are all about her semi-retirement.