Well, why not?

  1. Be written in limited third-person, either from just one character’s viewpoint or from a limited ensemble cast.
  2. Have all the major characters be strong, fascinating, and acting from realistic motives, if not easy to empathize with.
  3. Make the conflicts between those characters understandable, memorable, and full of witty dialogue.
  4. Give magic its own unique place in the story, not just use it as a series of plot devices.
  5. Have limited lyrical descriptions- not lasting for pages, not being clunky or purple, and NOT SOUNDING LIKE BAD T. S. ELIOT POETRY.
  6. Use a limpid, flexible, strong style, easily able to adapt itself to everything from extended dialogue scenes to extended fight scenes.
  7. Either have no abused protagonists, or star an abused protagonist who does something about moving on with his or her life, damn it, not lie there moaning and whining and weeping and having flashbacks.
  8. Introduce “That’s so fucking cool!” scenes where appropriate, such as when the characters pulled off a really clever plan against insurmountable odds, or when the story’s buildup of pain and suffering had created a backdrop against which the author could get away with glory.
  9. Have no romances, or have complicated, tangled romances of all kinds- the sweet, the deadly, the trashy, the fierce, the joyful, the tragic- excluding only the angsty, which belongs in bad romance novels and bad fanfic, not here.
  10. Include humor when appropriate, of any kind, and not as stupid, highly non-witty “comebacks” by heroes in obvious danger.
  11. Create villains I can understand but at the same time really, really want to see die in vicious screaming agony.
  12. Create heroes who think on their feet and outwit the villains, not just have stronger fireballs than they do.
  13. Give me a glimpse of the astounding breadth and depth and height of the fantasy world, instead of only showing those parts relevant to the plot or relevant to teenage soap opera concerns.
  14. End in a dashing eucatastrophe or explosion of tragedy, not sappiness or angst.

The ones I like best are the ones that have at least some of those. Never found a series that has all fourteen, but maybe someday someone will write one. Or I will.