While there are several series in the Gold Box umbrella, only the Pool of Radiance series of games had fiction written and connected to them. Those that were left out of tie-in fiction were Unlimited Adventures by MicroMagic, the two Savage Frontiers games and 1991’s Neverwinter Nights from Stormfront Studios/Beyond Software. This latter developer with release a couple more Forgotten Realms games later, though not under the Gold Box banner, and one would get some fiction—but that is for another time.
There are four games in the Pool of Radiance sequence. All were developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. Maybe the fiction/game deal was with them and not the other developers, whatever the reason, they’re the ones with fictions. And that’s not short stories, they’re full blown novels.
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| From belloflostsouls |
Pool of Radiance (1988) has a direct novel analog in the novel Pool of Radiance by James M. Ward and Jane Cooper Hong(1989). This novel is the beginning of a trilogy, more in that below.
Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989) has the novel Azure Bonds by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb. Surprisingly, this novel is not connected with the Pool of Radiance book. It does follow the same charcters as the game and even gets sequels in The Wyvern’s Spur (1990), Song of the Saurials (1991), and Masquerades (1995). These are some of my favorite D&D novels. This series also has some short stories and comic books related to it.
Secret of the Silver Blades (1990) sadly has no tie-in fiction!
Pools of Darkness (1991) does however. This novel of the same name (1992), by James M. Ward and Anne K. Brown, is a sequel to the Pool of Radiance novel mentioned above . This series goes one further as there is a third book with no accompanying game, Pool of Twilight (1993).
Looking at these books we can see that there are two paths for literature connected to the Gold Box games. Read what you will!