None, I've never found a rpg based book that is good.

I really loved Finder's Stone trilogy (FR). It does fellate Greenwood at one point but is otherwise good (edit: provided you enjoy wacky adventures (A)D&D tends to generate).

As for Death Gate, I'll just quote WRH:

I'll say again "Counselors and Kings" trilogy (The Magehound, The Floodgate, Wizardwar) is (imho) an excellent read, as are the "Starlight and Shadows" trilogy (Daughter of the Drow, Tangled Webs, Windwalker) and I also enjoyed the "Sembia: Gateway to the Reals" series (The Halls of Stormweather, Shadow's Witness, The Shattered Mask, Black Wolf, Heirs of Prophecy, Sands of the Soul, Lord of Stormweather).
Not sure how many of those were in the vicinity of BG, but I did enjoy them a lot.

Dragonlance Chronicles
Dragonlance Legends
Avatar Triology
Finders Stone Triology
Counselors & Kings

Apparently if you are writing about D&D you are required to split your work into three books or be killed by trolls. Since each of those represent at least 3 books, I have 15+ to keep me busy until next week. I always played my Drow as chaotic evil or, rarely, chaotic neutral. When ever I see someone playing them as chaotic good I just want to cringe. I remember reading Salvatore and the Elminster series back when I was 10 (John Major/Bill Clinton years) and thinking it was the greatest thing ever. Perhaps the key ingredient to enjoying those books is an under-developed brain.

Planescape Torment
By MCA and Colin McComb

Generally speaking, no. Most of it is simple "popcorn fantasy". Not that that is inherently a bad thing, but in my experience, the D&D books are as close to the 2/5star action movies that books seem to be able to get. Shallow, forgettable, but not entirely lacking in entertainment value.
Best of the lot seem to be the Dragonlance series, which while shallow and not all that memorable, is surprisingly entertaining to read.

Those are the *good* books? I'm happy I haven't read the rest. I remember reading the Dark Elf Trillogy, and one or two more books involving an orc invasion by the many arrows(?) clan, I inevitably found myself rooting for the bad guys in those books, which IMO is generally not a sign of a good book.

Yea, those would be continuation of the Icewind Dale line, straight power fantasy. Ie, pretty decent D&D books, as in showing how the party gets stronger and stronger and beats bigger and badder opponents. Even the fighters are not total losers, unlike in all Weiss Hickman books, where nobody is cool and capable but the mages.

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As a side note, what I can actually recommend, is Robin Hobbs Assasin Apprentice series.

Down to earth high fantasy. An amount of realism and rough edges aplenty. But not as much as in Song of Firen and Ice, not as much swearing, intestines and genitalia, certainly not describing every damn stale bread the "heroes" break their fast with.

And despite the name, it's not a brooding dark emo hero either. Actually rooting for the good guys,
And not D&D.

I love the fantasy genre, but its most popular representatives tend to suck so much that "root for the guys the author wants you to root for" is pretty much my only standing criterion for a good fantasy book. Most books fail even that.

RAGE INCOMING
It's not D&D, but how much should one suck as a (commercial) writer that "lolrandom" and "sykik powarz" are their idea of an exciting investigative process? Holy hell there's substantially less awful Harry Potter fanfiction.

I'll add it to my general reading list.

I honestly can't figure out why there are so few tolerable D&D books. I have three theories: One, it's a copyright issue and, like the terrible Star Wars novels, they are centrally control by a George Lucas level idiot or a soulless company. Two, the reader is supposed to fill in the blanks with their own character and the story is simply a canvas onto which the adventure projects. Three, writing a good book is really, really, really hard and the kind of audience that likes D&D has been spoon-fed terrible so long that they're no longer a viable market for talented fantasy writers.
Sauron is just a misunderstood Ainur who was trying to make his way in the world. So he wanted to enslave millions and block out the sun? Who doesn't have their faults? He is a job creator and did wonders for millions of unemployed orcs that the liberal media was all too eager to brand as 'evil'. This election season, make sure you tick the 'Sauron/Palin' box and say 'Yes!' to a better perpetual night.

I suspect that most of the authors who write these licence books (be it D&D, Warhammer, Star Wars or Doom) simply does it because it pays the rent. They are not heavily invested in their work, they don't really care "that" much about it, and they would most likely rather want to write something that gives them a bit more creative freedom. For the publishers, it is enough that they make books that are "alright", enough people will buy them anyway.

I'd say it's because the talented authors usually prefer to create their own settings, rather than being confined by a pre-determined one.

I found them to be a mixed bag. There were some pretty good ones in there (usually either by the people who have worked a lot with writing the backstory for the main games, or by the authors who have been given more creative freedom than most, like Dan Abnett), but there were also some horrendous examples, like C.S. Goto and his backflipping terminators. Most of the books are not disasters, but nor are they particularly memorable.

Also, avoid the recent Space Hulk book, it is horrible.