D&D books I should read......

[Drakeburn]

I've already read the Dragonlance Chronicles and the Halfling's Gem, but I'm still itching to read some more books.

Any suggestions?

[Hiro Protagonest]

...The rest of that particular Drizz't Do'Urden trilogy? As well as the books before it?

[Drakeburn]

...The rest of that particular Drizz't Do'Urden trilogy? As well as the books before it?

As if it was that simple. None of those books were in the library at the time I checked. I would check again, but again, I'm busy.

But, what about Ed Greenwood? Are any of his books worth looking at?

[nyjastul69]

If you enjoyed DL Chronicles you might also enjoy the Legends Trilogy. I would highly recommend the Annotated Chronicles as well. I find the authors insights fascinating.

Edit: I didn't like anything by Ed Greenwood. I just don't think he's a good writer. YMMV of course.

[Metahuman1]

I remember reading a Forgotten realms book I rather enjoyed called "Daughter of the Drow" when I was a teenager. I seem to recall it was suppose to be the start of a series but I could never find what any other books were called for that series so I never did get to follow up on it though.

[Deathkeeper]

I have a LOT of the DL books. Mostly because I only ever got them as gifts and it took two years for my folks to figure out that I'd only wanted Chronicles
To rate the series I've read.

Legends- Very good if you liked Chronicles
D.o.Summer Flame- Considered standalone by some, so I include it. It's good.
War of Souls- if you don't like Tasslehoff, don't bother, because he's 1/4 of all three books, the new characters aren't very interesting. Only half-decent IMO. The follow-up trilogy, Dark Disciple, isn't spectacular. It has the first kender I can stand, though.
Raistlin Chronicles- Very good, mostly because the Twins are pretty much the two most developed characters of the original party.
Lost Chronicles- fills in all the out-of-nowhere time gaps between the original books, which always irritated me with their existence. Read them just for that.
Minotaur Wars- Surprisingly readable. I was expecting trash, but I got through all three. Even if some parts of it remind me of God of War a bit too much.
Their short story collections can be pretty good too. The Dragons at War is my favorite.

Otherwise, try the Cleric Quintet and The Demon Awakens. The latter is one of Salvatore's older but good ones, and the former I got for a dime at my library's discard pile (they were all in one paperback), which was pretty much the best value I've ever gotten for less than a quarter.

[BWR]

Peresonal favorites.

Forogtten Realms

Starlight and Shadows trilogy by Elaine Cunningham
Daughter of the Drow
Tangled Webds
Windwalker

An excellent example of a Chaotic Neutral person, with some evil tendencies (she was raised as a drow, after all). Good love story, fun characters.

Drizzt by R.A. Salvatore
The Crystal shard
Homeland
Sojourn

The rest are increasingly bad and you might as well save your time. I liked them well enough when I was 16-17 or so but they have fallen out of favor since then. The first two trilogies, which these books are taken from, are readable enough (except Exile) but just don't bother with the rest.

War of the Spider Queen various authors, Salvatore's idea
While the quality of the books varies and the final one was a bit of a let down,there are some excellent characters and fun interaction in this sextet.


Dragonlance

"The Legend of Huma" and "Vinas Solamnus"
The Knights of Solamnia are my favorite aspect of the setting, and these are good stories.

I liked the "Legends" trilogy when I was younger and a Raistlin fanboy, but I'm less fond of it now. It's ok, but make sure to stay away from "Dragons of Summer Flame" and the War of Souls trilogy. Especially the last one, which is utter drek. The authors keep trying to end the DL story and the management keeps saying 'give us something more', to predictable results.

Mystara
"The Tainted Sword" by D.J. Heinrich. A tale of honor, shame and redemption. The rest of the Penhaligon trilogy is decent, but this one is good enough to stand alone.

[Lvl45DM!]

Try the Tomb of Horrors set in Greyhawk and the Gord novels by Gygax I thoroughly enjoyed them.

[Eldan]

IT's not officially D&D, but if you can find a collection of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories... I've never read anything that felt so much like an old-style D&D campaign log. Probably because it was one of hte main inspirations. A barbarian and a rogue with UMD go on a typical series of D&D adventures. Exploring locations, looting temples, tangling with the thieves' guild, getting cursed by wizards, investigating occult murders in a city...

[Traab]

Im going to second the cleric quintet. Awesome series that I probably would have loved more if I hadnt gotten stuck reading it WAY out of order.

Canticle
In Sylvan Shadows
Night Masks
The Fallen Fortress
The Chaos Curse

Just in case you cant get the full set in one book, (I have that too)

[Saph]

Azure Bonds is my personal favourite. Really good depiction of a D&D adventuring party (who join up with each other naturally enough that it doesn't feel forced).

[factotum]

I'm probably alone in this, but I actually liked the Spelljammer series that came out about 20 years ago...that's probably because I like the sheer ridiculousness of the Spelljammer setting more than most, though!

[Tyrant]

For Dragonlance I haven't read any of the books outside of those written by Weis and Hickman, so I can't recommend any of them. Of their books, I thought the Legends trilogy was the best.

For Dark Sun I have only read the Prism Pentad, which I thought was okay.

I have read considerably more Forgotten Realms books. They can vary wildly in quality, but unlike Dragonlance the world isn't built around a very small set of characters and a handful of major events. For the most part, you don't need to worry about an overall order to the books, unless they are part of a series obviously.

The Drizzt series is hit and miss. Salvatore is about the only Realms author whose books give me the vibe that he is lifting/reworking/whatever-you-want-to-call-it ideas out of LotR. Maybe it's just me though. Salvatore also seems to latch onto ideas that he likes and keeps reusing them, sometimes in oddly specific areas like weapon materials. As for the books, my favorite was The Pirate King, but you need to read a number of the other books to get most of what is happening in the book. I would finish the first trilogy and start working your way forward. If you hit a point that you don't like it anymore, stop there. The Cleric Quintet was decent throughout though.

Here are some that I enjoyed:
The Haunted Lands Trilogy by Richard Lee Byers- This series details the civil war in Thay, one of the nations on the Eastern half of the continent and a generally evil place. Some of the characters in this go on to star in another series listed below.
The Brotherhood of the Griffon (5 books) by Richard Lee Byers if you liked the Haunted Lands- This series follows some of the survivors of the Haunted Lands Trilogy as they set out as sellswords in the East.

These two series stand out from the rest to me because the overwhelming majority of FR books take place in the Western portion (The Sword Coast, Cormyr, Waterdeep, etc.) of the continent and center around good or neutral nations while these focus on one of the Evil nations. I also thought they were fairly well written.

The Erevis Cale series by Paul S Kemp
This is two trilogies, The Erevis Cale Trilogy and The Twilight War Trilogy. There is also a book, Shadow's Witness, that is part of the Sembia series (which is also decent) that stars the main character before the events of the two trilogies. There is another entry in this series coming out in October. The characters, good and evil, are the highlight of these books.

Brimstone Angels Series by Erin Evans
There are two books in the series with a third coming in December. They follow the exploits of a pair of twin Tiefling sisters as they set out into the wider world. The internal politics of the Nine Hells plays a noticeable part in these books. The characters are likeable and well written.

The Finder's Stone Trilogy by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak
Azure Bonds mentioned by a poster above is the first book in the series. This is one of the older sets of Realms books and gives you a good feel for the "classic" books.

Songs and Swords Series by Elaine Cunningham
This is another of the older series. 4 of the books that make up this series are all part of the Harpers series and the fifth is The Dream Spheres. These books center on Waterdeep though they do venture elsewhere. If you like these I would check out Waterdeep: City of Splendors and Evermeet: Island of Elves (essentially the highlights of Elven history in the FR)

There are other series and authors that I consider good to decent, but this post is long enough.

As far as Ed Greenwood, I feel like he has improved as an author over time. His most recent Elminster books were decent and a noticeable improvement over his early offerings. I think one thing that puts people off is that he is writing them with one eye on the book and one eye on the game setting (which makes sense since he created the setting) and because of that for every question he answers in the books he throws out several more questions and this can drive people crazy. I would check out the Elminster books if you want to see what his writing is like.

[The Glyphstone]

I've heard the Baldur's Gate novelization is of rare and unusual quality.:smallbiggrin:

[EvilJames]

I've really only read 2 D&D books and one was a humorous young adult book that I don't remember the title of that I read in one sitting. It was funny but I don't remember what it was called so that doesn't help you.
The other was Pages of Pain. One of only 4 planescape novels (5 if you count the novelization of Torment) I quite enjoyed it. It isn't a heavy read but it has interesting twists. Although it's plot bears some similarities to the Torment game.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I'm probably going to be repeating a few of the above, but:

From the Finder's Stone Trilogy, Azure Bonds and The Wyvern's Spur are good stories. The last book (Song of the Saurials), isn't as good, but as the first two are pretty much standalone stories (Olive and Giogi are the only common characters) ignoring the last book isn't a problem.

If you enjoyed those two, Masquerades is also quite a good read (Olive, Alias and Dragonbait team up against the Fire Masks - the Westgate thieves guild).

Salvatore's work varies between enjoyable (The Icewind Dale trilogy is probably his best) to downright poor (the later Drizzt books), to the extent that I stopped following him as an author. The Cleric Quintet manages to combine this by starting off very well, and nosediving so badly in the last book that I threw the entire series out.

On the Dragonlance side of the fence, The Legend of Huma is an excelent read, and its sort-of-sequels (Kaz the Minataur and Land of the Minataurs) are also worth a read.

There is also a story called Nightwatch, which is set in Greyhawk. It isn't as good as, say, Azure Bonds, but is a good enough read to have survived on my bookshelves.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Any good Eberron based books by any chnce?