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As I look back at the list I posted above I notice that I can be much more explicit about the failures than the successes. This, for me at least, is quite common. Give me a boring book and I'll pick it to pieces, giving you every little nit and grit that explains what went wrong, but give me something I enjoy and I simply don't notice the flaws.
And all books have flaws, fantasy in particular perhaps. I haven't yet met a paranormal creature story without glaring consistency issues - did none of these people study physics? And fantasy quests run into all sorts of trouble: The Lord of the Rings could have been over very quickly with the help of the eagles who end up coming to the rescue, a thousand pages later, anyway.
On the other hand, many apparent flaws in fantasy realms also have potential explanations. Just because the reader, after a few minutes of thought, did not come up with an explanation is not proof it does not exist, or that an explanation is truly inconceivable. So if we imagine an explanation exists, or give the author the benefit of the doubt, it is arguable that there are very good reasons why the author should not get side-tracked explaining away every possible criticism.
Obviously there is a limit to how much benefit of the doubt any of us are going to extend an author, but considering the sort of fiction we are reading I think it's appropriate to offer some.
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