Other games have done this and made the universe quite interesting, a few I can think of are Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Halo, ect. I've read a few of these, and they add even more onto the other games I love, but I feel like books about the world I have spent by far the most virtual hours in would be awesome! I know the in-game books that I open only only to the first page probably tell many of the stories a real book would, but I'm playing a video game for storylines, killing with magic and swords which I can't do irl, not reading virtual books. If there are actually books about the series, then that's awesome and I wasn't aware, and I would love to know more, but I haven't ever seen anything about it before, which is why I made this topic. Anybody else agree?

The Infernal City and Lord of Souls which are both by Greg Keyes are stories that happen in the TES universe.

Ugh. I hate to sound like an elitist or snob, because I really am neither - but seriously, while Mass Effect, Halo and Skyrim are great games, being a great game does not translate into being good source material for worthwhile fiction. I love the Star Wars movies, but God almighty all the extended world of Star Wars novels and almost every Star Wars comic I've seen has been utterly horrible.

If you want great fantasy, go read something like Tolkien or C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I hear that new series Game of Thrones is supposed to be genuinely good writing. If you want to read great sci-fi, go read some Heinlein or Asimov or maybe the Lensman series, not licensed Halo or Mass Effect novels.

As someone who has read over 200 novels (granted some have been as short as only 200 pages) I can say that even if the TES books are not the best books you can get there is still some entertainment value to be found in them. Instead of thinking "I'd rather read..." I recommend just reading both worked for me so far.

As with anything the books could be really good... if the author is really good. A great author can take a picture of a landscape and make a great novel out of it. So basically gram you not only look like a snob but an idiot

I suppose somewhere there's novels based on some licensed, franchised property originating in another medium that have turned out to be acceptable beach reading...but they're rather rare. I've indulged in this sort of thing myself. I read tons of Star Trek novels as a kid, I read those awful Timothy Zahn Star Wars novels later in life, I read the original Dragonlance novels back in the day, I even read some novel by Gary Gygax in high school. So I'm not coming from a place of elitist snobbery, looking down on popular fiction or something. It's just that I've found the acknowledged greats of the genres of science fiction and fantasy to be so much more satisfying than these novels that are written about licensed properties, that inevitably end up being pure fan service.

Not everything translates to another medium. Jaws is a great movie, but it was based on a fairly forgettable beach-reading novel; ditto for The Godfather. I can't imagine Moby dike translating into a movie without missing everything that makes it a great book. And almost no worthwhile superhero movie has been based on any specific comic, except The Watchmen. 300 translated well, and Sin City fairly well, but I can't imagine anybody trying to put The Dark Knight Returns on the big screen without being anything more than a hot mess.

Ditto with games. Mass Effect is great, classic science fiction...but I can't imagine a Mass Effect novel being anything but very bland, middle-of-the-road stuff compared to great sci fi works from Heinlein, Asimov or C.S. Lewis.

Well I think it doesn't really always depend on the author alone if a book is great to someone or not. Just look at Stephenie Meyer, do I think she's a great author ? No, not for me. But do I think she's a good author for others ? Of course!

Stories are a form of art, and artistic beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I personally thought the TES books were pretty average, not great but not bad. However the OP may think he's the best author ever or he may think he's the worst depending on just what kind of books he likes, I think the only way for someone else than him to really be able to evaluate if he would like a book or not, said person would need to have a better idea about what kind of books he reads and also be familiar with said books.

So I don't really think I can know, I've not read the books he mentioned specifically, I've read books bred from video game series such as a number of Warcraft books which I liked, but even those captured the spirit of Warcraft on different levels. I don't think the TES books captured what one normally feels when playing a TES game too well but it wasn't bad on a level where you would dislike it either. The author distances himself from classical TES quite a bit I must say and at times it felt more like a book about a zombie apocalypse and how some would survive if basically the Devil came to claim Earth with said zombie army. In any case it was an okay book.