Sadly, Anne McCaffrey can't write fast enough to keep her fans occupied all the time. So, when you've run out of Pern, why not try some of these authors?
On the book lists, those marked with an asterisk (*) are those I've read.
Mercedes Lackey
David Feintuch
Terry Pratchett
David Eddings
Jean M. Auel
I first encountered Mercedes Lackey - Misty to her fans - through The Ship Who Searched, with Anne McCaffrey. Because I liked her style, I picked up The Eagle and the Nightingales when I saw it, fell in love with the Free Bards and promptly bought all three - The Lark and the Wren and The Robin and the Kestrel are the others - in an imported US edition. Once I'd devoured that, I bought the Mage Storms trilogy, part of the Valdemar books, and, once again, fell in love.
The only thing that's stopping me buying all her books is the fact that nowhere in Warrington seems to stock them!
Misty writes fantasy - but fantasy with a difference. She hasn't lifted her worlds from Tolkien, they are all worlds of her invention, peopled with her characters and her imagination. None of her characters are stereotyped and all are believable, living people.
One of the things that sets Misty apart from so many writers is her attitude to homosexual - or shay'a'chern - characters. One of her best-loved characters, Vanyel is shaych and the way in which he copes with prejudice has helped many of Misty's shaych readers.
David Feintuch's scarily plausible vision of the future is not one in which I'd like to live. But it isn't the setting that I read his books for - it's the characters.
About the only similarity between Feintuch and Lackey is the quality of their characterisation.
David Feintuch's protagonist is Nicholas Seafort who, when we first meet him, is a midshipman in the United Nations Naval Service - the space fleet of the time. Through outstanding service in times of difficulty, he quickly progresses through the ranks.
But Nick isn't your average, sickeningly-good-at-his-job hero. He hates himself. He believes himself responsible for hundreds of deaths and considers he is damned for breaking his work to a mutineer. There are times when I just want to hug Nick and try to make him believe in himself. There are times when I want to hit him and tell him to stop being such a bloody idiot. Quite often, I get the two feeling from the same passage.
And that has got to be the mark of a good writer.
There's not much I can say about Terry Pratchett that hasn't been said before. He's funny, clever, thought-provoking, entertaining...
I can't recommend his Discworld books strongly enough. The only one I'd really stress of the non-Discworld books is Good Omens, with Neil Gaiman. For some reason, very few people can keep their copy of this one in good condition. Is it satanic forces at work or is it simply that it's so funny it gets read often enough that it just falls to pieces.
I'll leave it to you to decide...
Yes, David Eddings is trash fantasy. But he's damned funny trash fantasy!
I'd recommend reading the Elenium and the Tamuli first, rather than the Belgariad and the Mallorean. They're almost exactly the same anyway but Sparhawk isn't as irritating as Garion. There are times when I'm supporting Torak, simply because he's out to kill Garion. And Ce'Nedra! Egads, she should have been run through with a sword the moment she appeared, the stupid, whining, whingeing little....
Ahem, rant over. To put it bluntly, I don't particularly like the Belgariad and the Mallorean. I do, however, enjoy having a quick chortle at the Elenium and the Tamuli.
Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series is set in prehistoric Europe and, to my unknowledgable mind, seems to be a plausible account of life at the time.
Her protagonist is Ayla, a young Cro-Magnon girl adopted into a Neanderthal clan after her family is killed in an earthquake. Throughout the four novels that currently make up the series, Ayla has to deal with prejudice and outright hostility, both from the Neanderthals and from her own kind.
She can be a little sickeningly good at time but is a generally likeable character. Unfortunately her bloke, Jondalar, is far more irritating. And some of the later books are a little, erm, 'rampant' - so perhaps not suitable for younger readers.
By the way, if you've seen the film of Clan of the Cave Bear but haven't read the book, pay no attention to the film. It's rubbish!