Most Classic DnD reading?

[tim01300]

One of the guys in my DnD group is new to gaming and the fantasy genre as a whole. I'm hoping to get him a book for Christmas and I'm looking for help on books that are a good read yet still stay near the DnD classics, weak wizards and strong barbarians. I've read the Drizzit books and some of the other offical DnD books but the writing in those is slightly lacking...full of the wrong kind of cliches. He is 40 years old, not looking for anything too sappy or full of weak love story. He read the entire Game of Thrones books in about 2 months.

Right now I'm thinking Dragonlance might be a fun choice. Do you guys have any ideas? Maybe a list of your top 5 favorite fantasy books?

[Juntao112]

Most classic D&D reading? Probably something by Gygax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gord_the_Rogue).

[BWR]

The stories that inspired D&D seems the logical place to start:
Fritz Leiber's "Swords" series (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser)
Howard's Big Buff Barbarian stories (primarily Conan)
Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories
Tolkien
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom stories (John Carter of Mars)

If you want actual D&D stories
The Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, D.o. Winter Night, D.o. Spring Dawning
Vinas Solamnus (Dragonlance)
The Crystal Shard (Forgotten Realms, Salvatore) Despite the (after a while deservedly) bad rap Drizzt gets, the first story is pretty decent.
Knight of the Black Rose (Ravenloft)

[tim01300]

There are over 20 Ravenloft books! I had no idea. Are they any good?

[BWR]

There are over 20 Ravenloft books! I had no idea. Are they any good?

Some are better than others. In general, starting from "Vampire of the Mists" and up to "Tales of Ravenloft" they are pretty good. Worth buying and reading, at least IMHO. After that the quality drops off and they are mediorcre to bad. I liked "Baroness of Blood" but the rest weren't that great, and you should probably give "I, Strahd: the War against Azalin" and "Lord of the Necropolis" a miss. There were apparantly a few RL books published some years after the first series ended, but I haven't read those.

[LibraryOgre]

I'd lean towards Leiber, myself, since reading those really captured the feel of D&D to me, and he served as a big inspiration for it.

You might also look at Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series, wherein some college kids get sent into their game world... it was a popular story type 30 years ago, but Rosenberg does a lot with it, questioning the morality of game worlds, and the effect of inserting modern morality into them. Some of the later parts of the series might really resonate with a 40 year old, as well... the characters age in the series, and the Road to Ehvenor, especially, is told from the POV of a charming rogue in his early 40s.