LOTR and Wheel of Time

[The Saucepan Man]

Basically you can't write fantasy without it seeming like a ripoff of Tolkien.

I wouldn't wholly agree with that. I read a lot of fantasy books after reading LotR for the first time and would agree that many of them follow the basic pattern of LotR. Terry Brookes' Shannara series is, as others have said, the most blatant example. But I also read a fair few which were different in form and structure. Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, which I enjoyed immensely, springs to mind. Michael Moorcock's Corum and Elric books are also quite different in style and (particularly) characterisation.

And I have just started reading Pullman's Northern Lights and, while only a few chapters in, it seems to me to be of an entirely different character to LotR.