For me Dostoevsky, Dickens, Orwell and Burroughs are great writers. People who write about dwarves tend not to be great writers. They can concoct fun stories, but I don't regard them as great. That is why Lord of the Rings is great fun for kids. They are fun adventure books, but little more. The aforementioned writers define humanity with its highs and it's lows and offer vivid reflections of society at large. Fantasy books lack that power. You could argue that 1984 is fantasy, but really it is a massive mirror of totalitarian society. I am unlikely to ever come across a talking tree.