Myth, the Universe, and Everything

For as much as I play D&D, you'd think I'd like this type of thing. But for some reason, as soon as I read a story that includes an elf, dwarf, or halfling, I immediately get turned off. Not to say that anything you wrote above is poor. But it has a halfling. And healers. I like those in my D&D but not my fiction (unless the healer is an herbalist or something else folksy). Thing is, just the slightest twist and I'm perfectly willing to accept them. Tad Williams' most recent trilogy has a race called Funderlings which is essentially a dwarf (although without the big beards or constant beer swilling). They don't bother me in the slightest.