Mercedes Lackey wrote some fairly good novels based on the Bard’s Tale games.
Alan Dean Foster wrote an OK novel named Shadowkeep that was based on an old game of the same name.
Sorcery and Cecilia by Patricia Wrede and Carol Stevermer was originally a letter game between the two authors; they cleaned it up a bit and published it, later writing sequels. It’s pretty good, as are some of the sequels.
Other chess books include:
Jane Jensen wrote novelizations of the first two Gabriel Knight games (from Sierra). She was the designer and primary writer for the GK series and wrote for several other Sierra games.
Jensen went on to write two original novels, Judgment Day and Dante’s Equation.
Queen Magic, King Magic by Ian Watson is set in several game based worlds; based on chess, Snakes & Ladders and Monopoly IIRC.
John Brunner wrote The Squares of the City, which is based on chess.
Lawrence Watt-Evans has a series of books set in Ethshar. He originally intended this setting to be a game setting, and I think that it would be an excellent fantasy backdrop for a game.
Elizabeth Moon wrote some books (Deed of Paksennarion, tales of Gird) that seem based on D&D/AD&D, though the books are not marketed as game books. In one of the books, she gives an explanation of why paladins are so likable, IOW, why paladins have to have a high Charisma stat.
I really liked the books that I’ve mentioned, but notice that they were NOT marketed as being based on a game system.
Generally, I’ve found that if a book is marketed as a D&D or other game system book, that it sucks. The Dragonlance books were sometimes all right, but nothing spectacular. The Magic: the Gathering books that I read were particularly sucky. The only reason I bought them in the first place was to get the cards that were only available with a book purchase.
The later ones got better, when they started dealing with the world they’d built instead of tying in the game mechanics whenever they could. Although one of the Ice Age books had a rather neat visualization (and rationalization) of the learn-and-burn system.
The early ones are no longer in continuity, their conceit with the disks and such being thrown out.
The best game-tie in book I’ve ever read…was only loosely tied into the game it was tied into. White Wolf had a collection of short stories nominally based on their World of Darkness - it wasn’t, really, though. It was a collection of stories, both horror and dark fantasy, about vampires, werewolves, and wizards, but not the Kindred, Garou, or Awakened.
The actual Vampire tie-in books weren’t terrible, either. The Werewolf book I read was pretty crap, though, to be honest. I’m pretty sure I read a Mage book, but it was clearly forgettable, since I don’t even remember if it was good or bad.
I rather enjoy the D&D books - Elaine Cunningham’s being my favourite (Especially the Liriel Baenrae books). Ed Greenwood’s stuff tends to be entertaining, but really badly written. The prose is purpler than the Dragon of Cormyr. Salvatore, similarly, has some entertaining stories (particularly the ones not dealing with Driz’zt), but his actual writing isn’t great. The Realms of <X> books, collections of short stories, tend to be better than the novels - even Greenwood and Salvatore produce work that doesn’t have the occasional ‘oh, what the hell, man?’ moments when they’re constrained to a shorter format.
David Weber & Steve White’s Starfire novels are based on a space-war tabletop game of the same name.
Maybe I’m remembering wrong. I recall that Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising was based on/written in conjunction with a strategy board game. No mention of this in the wiki page. Did I remember it wrong?
Sorry to double post. I thought the first couple of Halo books were well done. The second one was by William Deitz who is a good military SF writer. I don’t know how many are out now but I didn’t read past the first couple.
There is a board game based on it but the book was released in 1987 and the game two years later in 1989.
I probably read it in 1990 so my edition mentioned the game.
David Skibbins writes the Tarot Card Mystery Series
No, Clancy’s co-author for Red Storm Rising was Larry Bond. Bond developed the Harpoon game series at the same time they were working on the book and some of the scenarios in the game are from the book.
There was a Wraith: the Oblivion tie-in book which was pretty poor. Not the worst I’ve read but it was rather dull and uninteresting.
The few Magic books I read back in the beginning were awful. I’ve heard they’ve gotten a little better, but they still suffer from having to cram in a lot of the latest cards into the storyline.
The Ravenloft novels, on the other hand, are surprisingly good for the most part. Vampire of the Mists is one of my favorites, as are Carnival of Fear, Dance of the Dead, I, Strahd I&II, Tales of Ravenloft, and To Sleep with Evil.