Finally read this D&D-related classic (one of the Appendix N books). Can't say I was extremely impressed, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was more like a D&D game just written as a story with some links to "real world" stuff. If the dice "bracers" wouldn't have been included I would probably recommend this to D&D lovers, but they were just too corny for me and they weren't even correct, I think a 3-sided die was mentioned and no D20.

The end comes up fast in this and there's not really much resolution. Also, the faery dragon steals the show and solves way too many problems for the party. ( )

In 1976, Gygax invited the science fiction/fantasy writer Andre Norton to play Dungeons & Dragons in his Greyhawk world. Norton subsequently wrote Quag Keep, which involved a group of gamers who travel from the real world to Greyhawk. It was the first novel to be set, at least partially, in the Greyhawk setting, and according to Alternative Worlds, the first to be based on D&D

wikipedia ( )

This is both a fantastic and awful book. It's clearly not Norton's best, and it ends fairly abruptly in a quasi mystification of choice amidst determinism (this is actually rather fascinating), but the central conceit is "what if I wrote a D&D game into a novel?", and this book is the first to do so. That had a big impact on the genre, so in a historical sense, anything about the Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms really gets its start here. It's an origin point.

As a narrative, don't expect much for character building. This is also the birth of "I can hear the dice rolling" since they quite literally *are* on their wrists. Not all of it really seems to need to make sense. But it's short and surely worth the time for young readers, and essential if you're interested in the history of the genre. ( )

Andre Norton was an excellent author, who wrote some wonderful and compelling stories. This isn't one of them; with a confusing narrative, dull characters, and a pedestrian story. It's not Norton's fault; this was one of the earliest gaming novels, based on a typical adventure in Dungeons and Dragons. I suspect that Ms. Norton was required to use certain conventions and references in the story. Even now, novels based on gaming universes tend to be mediocre at best, and TSR and Andre Norton were breaking new ground with Quag Keep. A curiosity, for the completist and for those interested in the evolution of gaming fiction. ( )

The first and best (to me) novel inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. 'Quag Keep' takes D&D concepts of clerics and wizards and monsters, turns them into a story, and adds the peculiar concept of the characters actions being controlled by dice! Its odd, but it works. A great adventure. ( )