I'm not a huge fantasy fan as an adult, but read a decent amount when I was younger. Tolkien's work is amazing. It has held up over a long period of time and entertained generations of readers.

These are excellent, even in comparison with real literature.

Competing against the bulk of this other tripe, they look like Shakespeare compared to Star Trek

The gold standard of the genre, felt that way as a kid , still feel that way now. And I'm not so sure that any book or series of books in other genres dominate that genre to the same degree as this quartet does...