The eighties were good (or "good") for more than just music and hair: they left a definite imprint on fantasy as well. Witness: 
 Starhawk ducked under the door flap of her tent, and held it aside for Fawn to pass. "I don't know if that's why the wizards finally died out," she said. "But I do know they weren't all evil like Altiokis. I knew a wizard once when I was a little girl. She was--very good." 
 Fawn stared at her in surprise that came partly from astonishment that Starhawk had ever been a little girl. In a way, it seemed inconceivable that she had ever been anything but what she was now: a tall, leggy cheetah of a woman, colorless as fine ivory--pale hair, pewter-gray eyes--save where the sun had darkened the fine-grained, flawless skin of her face and throat to burnt gold. Her light, cool voice was remarkably soft for a warrior's, though she was said to have a store of invective that could raise blisters on tanned oxhide. It was more believable of her that she had known a wizard than that she had been a little girl. 
 --pp 6-7, mass market paperback 
 Really, could this delight come from any other decade? For an added bonus, my copy even has tremulous binding and that old-paperback smell! Definitely a comfort re-read, with some fantastic female characters (have we been backsliding on this?), great world-building (religions, histories, magic systems), and gruff male and female mercenaries with hearts of gold (mmmm, fantasy tropes! how I love this one).