D&D Novels

[Desdichado]

The preview art is up at Amazon. Looks like the title will be Deceived and it'll be about that Sith guy in the "Deceived" cinematic trailer. Unsurprisingly.

Like I said, I'll almost certainly buy it sight unseen. I love the concept of the Old Republic.

 

[Desdichado]

So, don't start with Rose Estes or Andre Norton if you are interested in D&D fiction, start with the (widely accepted) good stuff! Salvatore's Drizzt novels would be my top recommendation, but almost anything from the Forgotten Realms line published in the past ten years would also get my vote.

Yep, my recommendations are still the same as they were in the "threadcrap" post: the first three Salvatore books, the first three Weis and Hickman Dragonlance books, and then maybe the "unofficial" D&D novels of Raymond Feist and Simon R. Green.

Ray Feist's Magician books and the rest of his series, actually started life as a D&D campaign, before migrating to a new system. Feist was writing--basically--the prequels to the game he was in. Plus, the Kelewan world was (obvious, IMO) Tekumel with the names changed, until it got developed in a few different directions in the Ray Feist/Janny Wurts crossover series starting with Daughter of the Empire. Although that series lacks the D&D brand name on it, it's about as much D&D fiction as you can get. And its better than most of the D&D fiction anyway.

 

[Orius]

Yep, my recommendations are still the same as they were in the "threadcrap" post: the first three Salvatore books, the first three Weis and Hickman Dragonlance books, and then maybe the "unofficial" D&D novels of Raymond Feist and Simon R. Green.

That's usually the best place to start. Most D&D fiction doesn't have a great reputation, and there are plenty of people who even hate Salvatore and Weis and Hickman. I've read very little myself, and some of that was crap, so the bad reputation is often deserved. I haven't read anything new in well over 10 years, so the more recent stuff might be better, and WotC might actually have better standards than TSR did back in the day. But the TC is looking for recommendations, so best to point him toward the stuff that's considered readable.

 

[Tamlyn]

Sorry to bring this back up a week after the last post. But one of my favorites is The Cleric Quintet by Salvatore. I like it much more than all the Drizz't stuff. And it's a single anthology so it's a little less daunting.

 

[karlindel]

I would recommend picking which world you want to read novels from. Eberron and Forgotten Realms are the ones that Wizards is currently putting out. In addition, there were novel lines for Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Mystara.

If you want to look at Eberron, Keith Baker's Dreaming Dark trilogy is a good place to start. My favorites of the ones I have read is the Heirs of Ash trilogy. I also enjoyed Night of the Long Shadows.

If you are going with the Forgotten Realms, I would recommend picking up the anthologies (Realms of Magic, Realms of Infamy, etc.), as that will let you see what some of the authors are like. Personally, I am a fan of Elaine Cunningham, and highly recommend Elfshadow and Elfsong. I also like R.A. Salvatore, although I did not read much of Drizzt after the Icewind Dale Trilogy and the prequel novels (Homeland, Sojourn, and Exile). Forgotten Realms has a lot of novels, and if you want to go that route you should probably start a thread specifically about it.

For Greyhawk, Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels are worth reading, while the Rose Estes should probably be avoided. There were some more recent novels named for (and based on) some of the early D&D modules. I remember enjoying the ones written by Paul Kidd (White Plume Mountain, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits), but don't really remember the others.

The Dark Sun Prism Pentad was a fun read for me, but gets a lot of negative reviews from those that played in the world. The Dark Sun novels varied in quality, and I can't recall any of them that stood out in my mind.

Dragonlance had a lot of good novels, and I would recommend the original trilogy. If you like them, then look into going farther into the world. Again, it would be worth starting its own thread to get reviews from people who have read them.

As someone else mentioned, Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga is based on D&D. I enjoyed them a great deal when I was younger, but haven't read them in years.

Novels that inspired early D&D can be an enjoyable read. Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the grey Mouser, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and Robert E. Howard's Conan novels were particularly strong influences on the game. H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu works also served as inspiration for aspects of the game.

 

[pneumatik]

First, DnD novels. I enjoyed the Dark Sun Prism Pentad books, though that was mainly because I loved the setting and the Pentad books tell you a lot about it that isn't in the original box set.

I re-read the Dragonlance Chronicles a month or two ago. I really did not enjoy them. Some of the most exciting events in the trilogy happen completely off-screen. The protagonists don't really save the day so much as plot happens around them and then Good wins. There's a lot of telling instead of showing, to the point where I just don't care about the main character's relationship issues at all. And I just generally had trouble getting through the trilogy. I don't mean to threadcrap, I just want to justify my anti-recommendation.

For non-DnD novels, I second Jack Vance's Dying Earth books. Lots of fun, great writing style, and very influential on DnD.

I've been reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books since the first one came out. I recently re-read the extant ones and they were very good. Having not read them in years I found I enjoyed them in new ways. They're a different style of fantasy but still very good.

When I was younger I loved anything by David Eddings. They're not really ground-breaking but they are fun easy quick reads.