That's not meant as a snide answer, btw -- the distinction between epic fantasy and other kinds of fantasy set in secondary worlds mirrors that between epic poetry and other kinds of long poems. And in both cases, it doesn't help that often enough, people loosely use the epic term to cover the whole set -- even though labeling, say, Georgics as the same genre as Iliad diminishes both the heroic intent of the latter and the domestic intent of the former, and likewise for the domestic Spindle's End and heroic The Lord of the Rings.

---L.