D&D 5E D&D-ish novels?

[Greg K]

Lawrence Watts Evans Ethshar novels are fun to read, and occasionally thought provoking. The Night of Madness is the best exploration of the need for and purpose of magicians guilds that I've ever read..

I liked the "The Misenchanted Sword". It is a great example of how to implement a cursed item.
I still want to read "With a Single Spell" about an apprentice wizard whose master dies after teaching him only a single spell. The apprentice sets out to seek his fortune spell "armed" with the ability to create fire.

 

[meomwt]

Either I've missed it, or we've got to page 5 without a mention of Robert E. Howard's Conan series yet.

There's another hero rarely in the market for saving the world, merely stealing jewels, getting the girl and getting the heck out of Dodge.

Most of the other candidates have been mentioned already, though I'll second the Elenium sequence by David Eddings, as the plot seems more mature and the world more rounded than that of The Belgariad.

 

[Zaukrie]

Many of those are great books, but not at all D&D like. I love the jhereg books, but they are not D&D. The Kemp books are. Feists books largely are. The deed of Paksanarreon is. The hearts and the lions is, but is about a real world person, violating the OPs request.

 

[chibi graz'zt]

Name of the Wind, it has a bard

 

[Umbran]

The Deed of Paksennarion, as others have noted, is a good one.

"Villains by Necessity", by Eve Forward (daughter of sci-fi author Robert L Forward) is the story of a very D&D world, in which Good has won. It is, sadly, out of print, and hard to find. It has so many D&D tropes that it is hard to imagine Ms. Forward wasn't playing...

"Grunts" by Mary Gentle is the story of a very D&D-ish world... from the orcs point of view. It has teh best first sentence of any fantasy novel I've ever read, but it gets weird when the dominatrix halfling and the AK-47s come into play....

You might want to take a look at the Weis & Hickman "Deathgate Cycle" books, which has a very, "GM got bored with standards settings, and broke his world," style to it.

 

[Andor]

I liked the "The Misenchanted Sword". It is a great example of how to implement a cursed item.
I still want to read "With a Single Spell" about an apprentice wizard whose master dies after teaching him only a single spell. The apprentice sets out to seek his fortune spell "armed" with the ability to create fire.

You definitely should. Not only is it a fun read, but the protagonist becomes a recurring character in the books, along with Valder the inn keeper.

 

[Enkhidu]

Steven Brust's Jhereg series is an excellent piece of work that is basically focused on a high-level evil party. The main character is an assassin. It's one of the best written series to tackle easy, prevalent resurrection magic and its implications.

I was going to recommend Brust, but not this series (or Taltos). The Phoenix Guards, however, reads like a D&D campaign.

 

[redrick]

This might be a little too obvious, but Vance's Dying Earth series is some great proto-D&D. You get to see Vancian spell-casting at work. Plus Liane the Wayfarer is a classic CE murder-hobo. I found these stories really fun to read after playing D&D for my whole life.

I of course second Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books. These were a huge D&D inspiration for me as a youngster. Conan stories also generally read like solo D&D adventures. Some of the pulp fiction tropes of the period do not hold up well in this day and age, but if you are able to let it be a product of its times, you can really enjoy some great dungeon romps with Conan.

N.K. Jemisin's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series is a little too Epic in its scope to be a D&D book — many of the characters are straight-up gods — but something about her world building just screams "great D&D world" to me, and I love reading her novels while planning a campaign. Good stuff. I was happy to see her in the Appendix N for 5e.

 

[Zaukrie]

Brust's books are pure fun

 

[Duganson]

Some I'd like to point out from others:

Ambercrombie's First Law. AWESOME and funny.

Egil and Nix. Just south of true D&D, no surprise considering the author.

Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. A must read.

Elric of Melnibone. This is the best of the best of Sword and Sorcery, hands down.


Some I'm thinking of:

Goblin Hero by Hines. Fun and funny take on the other end of the adventurer's sword.

Jirel of Joiry by C.L. Moore. Its been a long time but I remember thinking this even better then Conan, certainly less sexist.

Tales from the Flat Earth by Tanith Lee. This is decidedly not D&D but it is awesome prose. Think if Oscar Wilde rewrote 1000 Nights and a Night (Arabian Nights) high on Ecstasy. So good.

 

[Rhenny]

Wow...lots of good reading! Like some of the others, I loved Fritz Lieber (Grey Mouser books), Michael Moorcock (Elric books and Hawkmoon books), the Thieves' World stories edited by Robert Asprin, and others including the newer books by Patrick Rothfuss (Kingslayer series), and many others.

Nobody mentioned some of the ones that are actually about RPG groups that get transported into the DMs world....the original Quag's Keep by Andre Norton, and the Guardians of the Flame Series by Joel Rosenberg. I devoured those when I was younger.

 

[Zaukrie]

Good call on these above
http://www.jimchines.com/novels/goblins/

 

[resscane]

Shogun. Obviously has an oriental flavor to it, and not exactly high fantasy, but the writing and political intrigue is top-notch.

Totally agree with this. Love that book.

 

[Fedge123]

The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs
The story of two wizards hunting down evil. From Wikipedia: "This novel was listed in the "recommended reading" list in the first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax. Prospero's practice of studying his book of spells the night before he might need them may have helped inspire the game's requirement for magic users to do the same (see also Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories).

The Elric and Hawkmoon series by Michael Moorcock was already mentioned, but don't forget the Corum series of novels too! Pretty much anything by Moorcock is great.

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Most of the John Carter books are great (despite the transported to another world hook).

Forerunner by Andre Norton
Drow, but not drow ...

 

[Mistwell]

The Book of Elementals "series" by Phyllis Eisenstein is D&D-esque, and superb. I put "series" in quotes because there are only two books (and a third is written but still unpublished). These books are sort of a secret. In that, it seems like nobody has every heard of them, but they're so friggen good it's incredible everyone hasn't heard of them. And once you read them you will join me in saying, "Wow, how are these not hugely popular?"

The two books are The Sorcerer's Son, and The Crystal Palace. Lot's of D&D-like creatures, done completely differently than you expect. Demons, sorcerers, and many elementals. Thinking, interesting elementals with unique cultures and societies and planes/worlds.

 

[Greg K]

Nobody mentioned some of the ones that are actually about RPG groups that get transported into the DMs world....the original Quag's Keep by Andre Norton, and the Guardians of the Flame Series by Joel Rosenberg. I devoured those when I was younger.

For Guardians of the Flame, thatis because the winged mouse of the night stated, specifically, that he does not like books in which people from our world are transported into a fantasy world.

 

[Rhenny]

For Guardians of the Flame, thatis because the winged mouse of the night stated, specifically, that he does not like books in which people from our world are transported into a fantasy world.

Oops...I missed the parenthetical statement he made. Sorry. Carry on. There's nothing to see here.

 

[Anakzar]

"The Dwarves" by Markus Heitz. Also just got done reading the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

 

[fixitgeek]

I am going to have to recommend Ren of Atikala, it is a good book by David Adams. It follows the adventures of a kobold sorceress and her companion who I can only assume is a kobold barbarian in their adventures after the destruction of their home deep underground.

 

[mflayermonk]

Nonfiction: Medieval Underworld by Andrew McCall

Fiction: Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief

The most purely (1e) D&D story out there is probably Clark Ashton Smith's The Theft of the Thirty Nine Girdles.
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/215