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.

 

[Queer Venger]

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.