D&D General Random House Announces Three New Licensed Dungeons & Dragons Books

Random House opened pre-orders for three new licensed Dungeons & Dragons books coming later this year. The first is A Long Rest for Little Monsters (Dungeons & Dragons) written by Brittany Ramirez and illustrated by Shane Clester, which will be part of the classic children’s book line Little Golden Book. From the product description:

Little ones can meet iconic monsters from Dungeons & Dragons in this adorable rhyming Little Golden Book!

Colorful dragons settle down for the night.
No matter what color—blue, green, black, or white!
Red dragons curl up, protecting their gold,
While white dragons lie outside in the cold!

Little dungeon masters will meet dragons, owlbears, beholders, and more as they all get ready for bed in this fun, rhyming Little Golden Book. Perfect for adventurers ages 2 to 5 as well as Dungeons & Dragons fans and Little Golden Book collectors of all ages!

Little Golden Books enjoy nearly 100% consumer recognition. They feature beloved classics, hot licenses, and new original stories . . . the classics of tomorrow.

The 24-page hardcover is available for pre-order now for a retail price of $5.99 and an expected release date of January 23, 2024.

And for just about the complete opposite, we will also get later this summer Puncheons & Flagons: The Official Dungeons & Dragons Cocktail Book [A Cocktail and Mocktail Recipe Book] by Andrew Wheeler and “Official Dungeons & Dragons Licensed”. From the product description:

Complement any game night with 75 deliciously clever Dungeons & Dragons-themed cocktails and bar bites to sustain any group of players for any time of day.

Entertain fabulously while you adventure in your next D&D campaign! Puncheons & Flagons is a delightful and fun-filled cocktail and snacks book filled with fare that would be served up at your character’s favorite tavern, inn, or market along the Sword Coast. All seventy-five dishes, created by a professional recipe developer, are easy to prepare and provide everything you need for hosting and entertaining with D&D flair.

Dishes are organized by in-world drinking establishment and by base ingredient with options for every occasion—especially game nights!—including:

• Adventurous cocktails such as Necromancer and Hand of Vecna
• Batch cocktails such as Candlekeep Tea and Faerie Fire
• Nonalcoholic concoctions such as Mourning Cup and Baldurian Tonic
• Tasty morsels such as Luiric Rarebit and High Sun Florentines

Drink up!

The 192-page hardcover is available for pre-order for a retail price of $29.99 for the hardcover and $14.99 for the Kindle ebook edition with an expected release date of August 27, 2024.

Finally coming this summer is Dungeons & Dragons: Spelljammer: Memory’s Wake by Django Wexler. This makes the first solo Spelljammer novel for Dungeons & Dragons since 1993. From the product description:

A Dungeons & Dragons novel set in the Spelljammer universe

In this reboot of a beloved D&D setting, join Axia, a young woman with a mysterious past, as she embarks on a piratical adventure aboard a Spelljammer, a flying spaceborne vessel powered by magic.

Dungeons & Dragons: Spelljammer: Memory’s Wake is available for pre-order for $28.99 in hardcover, $14.99 in Kindle ebook, and $35.00 for the audio book with a scheduled release date of July 2, 2024.

Note: All links to Amazon in this article are affiliate links which provide a small commission of the purchase price of any products purchased by clicking the links to the author of this article.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Is anyone familiar with the author of the Spelljammer book? I'm pretty interested in that.

I have heard good things

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Yeah he's a decent writer who has very human and real characters, if sometimes a little "grimdark". I'm quite surprised to see him writing an SJ book, I really hope they've given him free reign, because he could do a great job with the setting, but if it has to be PG like everything else for D&D of late, it'll be a mess because he's very R-rated to put it mildly.

He may have specifically taken this assignment to flex his writing chops and write in a different style with different parameters... or maybe Random House and WOTC saw the success of some of the more adult elements of Baldur's Gate 3 and told him to have at it in novel form while keeping official WOTC supplemental game material strictly PG rated.

 

[humble minion]

He may have specifically taken this assignment to flex his writing chops and write in a different style with different parameters... or maybe Random House and WOTC saw the success of some of the more adult elements of Baldur's Gate 3 and told him to have at it in novel form while keeping official WOTC supplemental game material strictly PG rated.

I’m pretty sure he’s written young adult books before, so he’s likely not completely locked in to hard-R grimdark stuff.

 

[Abstruse]

I will wait on the reviews of the cocktail book. In my experience, a lot of the themed cocktail books either just rename existing cocktails (boo) or include recipes that need a ton of obscure and expensive ingredients that most people don't have the ability to have on hand (also boo). I think one of the many, many, many existing unlicensed Hobbit cookbooks/cocktail books might be a better way to go for me.

It's the Catch 22 of a lot of recipe books but especially with cocktails. There are only so many alcohols and mixers that are commonly stocked in a bar - especially a home bar. Eventually, you run out of combinations and, if you want to make something original, have go for less common ingredients (meaning a special trip to the grocery/liquor store for Applejack or Fresh Pressed Pomegranate Juice) or reskin or very slightly modify ingredients from an existing drink. Take out the tequila and double the vodka from a Long Island for example and call it something else., or add chocolate syrup to a white russian.

And honestly, you run into the problem with food recipe books as well. It's rare to find actual new recipes rather than minor variations of existing recipes. Most of the innovation in cooking is done in kitchens who then develop a reputation for any unique dishes they make. And since recipes can't be protected by copyright, nobody's publishing their cutting edge innovations until after the fad's died out and the foodies have moved on to the next trend.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's the Catch 22 of a lot of recipe books but especially with cocktails. There are only so many alcohols and mixers that are commonly stocked in a bar - especially a home bar. Eventually, you run out of combinations and, if you want to make something original, have go for less common ingredients (meaning a special trip to the grocery/liquor store for Applejack or Fresh Pressed Pomegranate Juice) or reskin or very slightly modify ingredients from an existing drink. Take out the tequila and double the vodka from a Long Island for example and call it something else., or add chocolate syrup to a white russian.

Oh, for sure. But I've seen recipes in the many, many, many themed cocktail books in my local Barnes & Noble that aren't just switching out the sweet in a sour or any of the other ways once makes a new drink, but either purposefully or accidentally taking a reasonably well-known second tier drink, like a Boulevardier, slapping a cutesy name on it, and proclaiming it a new drink.

And honestly, you run into the problem with food recipe books as well. It's rare to find actual new recipes rather than minor variations of existing recipes.

There was a study a major newspaper -- maybe the Washington Post -- did a few years ago, and they found that a huge number of recipes from books that were described as being someone's family recipe were actually ... what was on the back of the Tollhouse chocolate chip bag, or the equivalent. I assume a lot of these were pure ignorance, that Grandma didn't cop to copying it down off the bag and her family just assumed she had created or modified the recipe herself.

 

[GreyLord]

It's the Catch 22 of a lot of recipe books but especially with cocktails. There are only so many alcohols and mixers that are commonly stocked in a bar - especially a home bar. Eventually, you run out of combinations and, if you want to make something original, have go for less common ingredients (meaning a special trip to the grocery/liquor store for Applejack or Fresh Pressed Pomegranate Juice) or reskin or very slightly modify ingredients from an existing drink. Take out the tequila and double the vodka from a Long Island for example and call it something else., or add chocolate syrup to a white russian.

And honestly, you run into the problem with food recipe books as well. It's rare to find actual new recipes rather than minor variations of existing recipes. Most of the innovation in cooking is done in kitchens who then develop a reputation for any unique dishes they make. And since recipes can't be protected by copyright, nobody's publishing their cutting edge innovations until after the fad's died out and the foodies have moved on to the next trend.

It could be hilarious though if, for once, they did something far more simple.

Dwarven Beer - Get Beer...any beer. Mix half of a glass with the beer, half the glass with 98 proof whiskey (any whiskey...dwarves aren't picky) and wait five minutes. Drink. Holler. Go back and get some more.

Dwarven Whiskey - Never mind, drinking this will kill you.

Elven Wine - Domaine Sauvete Sauvignon - the older and more expensive...the better. Elves are picky. Heck...just find the most expensive and tasty wine you can afford...it still won't make your elf friends happy.

Gnomish Liquor - Nyquil. Even that is too much for a Gnome. It puts them right to sleep.

Halfling Ale - Milk, spoiled. What, you didn't know they had that much in common with Aliens...did you???

Halfling Cider - Just normal, alcoholic cider. They need something every once in a while that isn't spoiled milk. You try drinking that stuff every day and see how you like drinking your milk that way...just to get drunk.

 

[Abstruse]

There was a study a major newspaper -- maybe the Washington Post -- did a few years ago, and they found that a huge number of recipes from books that were described as being someone's family recipe were actually ... what was on the back of the Tollhouse chocolate chip bag, or the equivalent. I assume a lot of these were pure ignorance, that Grandma didn't cop to copying it down off the bag and her family just assumed she had created or modified the recipe herself.

Oh, absolutely. And I'm not even sure if it's ignorance or Grandma didn't want to admit it, but I'd guess there's one very minor change that makes a huge difference. For example, my secret cookie recipe is the Tollhouse cookie recipe but with three very minor changes - I use half white sugar and half brown sugar, I use half butter and half butter-flavored shortening, and the third I will keep to myself or else it won't be a "secret recipe" anymore. But those first two seriously affect the texture of my cookies so that they're crisp at the edges but chewy and gooey in the middle, and the third secret change makes them absolutely delicious to the point of becoming addictive.

Especially with baking recipes, there's only so much you can do to a recipe before the results will no longer be recognizable. It's really simple to have your own chili recipe or stew recipe because it's a very flexible dish with a lot of variation. But if you mess around with a chocolate chip cookie, it's very simple to no longer have what would be called a "cookie" at the end if you get too radical with the changes. I remember one time when I was a kid, my dad thought it would be a good idea to make healthier cookies by substituting whole milk for the eggs. What came out of the oven was thin, flat, took up the entire cookie sheet instead of being individual cookies, and could break a tooth.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

the third secret change makes them absolutely delicious to the point of becoming addictive.

You can just say that you add cocaine. We won't judge.

Especially with baking recipes, there's only so much you can do to a recipe before the results will no longer be recognizable. It's really simple to have your own chili recipe or stew recipe because it's a very flexible dish with a lot of variation. But if you mess around with a chocolate chip cookie, it's very simple to no longer have what would be called a "cookie" at the end if you get too radical with the changes. I remember one time when I was a kid, my dad thought it would be a good idea to make healthier cookies by substituting whole milk for the eggs. What came out of the oven was thin, flat, took up the entire cookie sheet instead of being individual cookies, and could break a tooth.

Stovetop cooking is art, but baking is chemistry. And chemistry has some very hard and fast rules.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Gnomish Liquor - Nyquil. Even that is too much for a Gnome. It puts them right to sleep.

I always think of gnomes as having something of an alpine flavor. And folks who live in the Alps love their booze, even if it's hidden in hot tea or something.

 

[bedir than]

I will probably get the cocktail book. I have one themed cocktail book currently, Tequila Mockingbird. Yes, it's all writing puns.

But people also know that I'm this type of nerd, again. I'll bring either out depending on the party