Join me as I review Tanis the Shadow Years by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel, live! Share your thoughts on this third novel in the Dragonlance Preludes II series, released in November 1990 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/48E0vpI
About Tanis the Shadow Years
The sixth and final book in the Preludes series follows Tanis Half-Elven on a dangerous adventure through time and memory
The tale is told that Tanis Half-Elven once disappeared in the mountains near Solace. He returned changed, ennobled—and with a secret. No one knew what happened to him in those mist-shrouded peaks. Until now.
Accompanied by his new dwarf acquaintance, Clotnik, Tanis chases after information about his mysterious and long-dead father. His search leads him to Kishpa, a dying, lovesick mage who holds the answers to Tanis’ burning questions—but who needs Tanis’ help first. So begins a wild adventure in which Tanis becomes a traveler in Kishpa’s memory, journeying into the past to fight an impossible battle against time itself.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Brookgreen the 6th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Tanis the Shadow Years by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
We open with Tanis paired with a mysterious dwarf named Clotnick, in the Inn of the Last Home being served ale by Tika. Tanis, ready to go, says goodbye, and the dwarf insists on another round. Tanis refuses, so he offers it to Tika, she goes back to the kitchen and Otik comes out with the bill. The dwarf has no money to pay for the large bill, but juggles for it. He talks of Tanis leaving and that he wants to go with him. He even knows Tanis age, which is 97 by the way, and says that if he can go with him, he will introduce him to a man who knew Tanis’ father. This seals the deal.
They leave in the morning and after a few days, Tanis notices a wildfire in the distance. They plan to have a log in the lake they can hold onto as the fire passes them by, but Tanis notices a man through the smoke and flames in the distance. They both rescue the man and get to the lake only to reveal the unconscious man is who Clotnick was going to introduce Tanis to… It’s a fun beginning. It presents Tanis’ ignorance, and the audience’s as well, to his parentage is a mystery. The Inheretance wasnt written yet so it presents a different version of his mother’s rape. And that he lived with distant relatives, not the Speaker, which has been defined at this point. It leads you to believe that the mother had nothing to do with royalty in this version, only distant relatives did.
So they took the old, burned man to the lake and they stayed there overnight, floating. The old man is passed out and he comes to as Tanis is swimming to the shore. He is called Kishpa, and he is clearly burned and nearly dead. He is Clotnick’s friend, but wanted someone else to rescue his one true love. He offers Tanis the opportunity but tells him that in order to meet his father and save the girl, he will have to travel into Kishpa’s memory, and rescue her from his mind! How is she stuck in his mind? I have no idea. Is she a person trapped or a memory trapped? I have no idea, but he is sure Tanis could die trying to find her as the Qualinesti elves and the humans are warring over territory disputes in Abanasinia. All of this must be done before Kishpa dies from his burns to boot!
With the chance to meet his father, Tanis agrees and Kishpa casts the spell. Tanis is thrown into a battle in the past. He fights for the elven side and is rescued by a human comedian named Little Shoulders Scowarr. Scowarr was hired by the human army to entertain its troops, but they just tried to kill him. The dynamic between Scowarr and Tanis is hilarious. Scowarr is constantly trying to make Tanis laugh, but fails at every effort, even when Tanis thinks something is funny, he just slightly smiles at best, which irritates Scowarr to no end. I love it. He saves Tanis from the human mercenaries by ducking into a cavern that leads to the cliffs overlooking the Straights of Algoni. Once there, they see the tide rising so they have to climb or drown.
Tanis leads the climb up the cliff face, and a dwarf named Yeblidod overhears them and drops a rope tied to an empty cart. Once Tanis grabs it, the cart slides over the cliff and he falls to his doom, only to be saved by the young mage Kishpa! Now the old man Kishpa said that if his younger self found out what Tanis was sent back to do, he would try to stop him, so Tanis does some nice verbal tap dancing here. They are saved and leave with the pair to the town of Ankatavaka. An elven village in Abanasinia on the coast. It is about to come under siege, so Tanis and Scowarr are ready to help as a sign of good faith for having been saved.
This is where Scowarr is made a hero. He has bandages wrapped around his head so he doesn’t look so human to the elves he’s fighting with, and as Kishpa is casting spells to repel the human army, Scowarr is shouting and looking insane so every human avoids him. This gives him false confidence and he wades into battle, even though he’s not a fighter. Tanis, not wanting to see him killed, acts crazy too, and screams charging after him. The elven force is bolstered by their madness and they all fight with renewed strength and Kishpa casts an enchantment on their weapons and passes out from lack of endurance.
After the battle the elven forces see Scowarr as a hero and celebrate him, he is revealed to be a human and they don’t care. He then starts his comedic routine and kills! Tanis is going after the woman Kishpa sent him into his memories to save, named Brandella. Tanis bursts into her room to find her gone, but sees a mural on the ceiling that looks like Tanis carrying Brandella. He learns that she was spotted near the shore, so he races down there to find his father, attacking the dwarf Yeblidod! He tries to talk to his father who just wants to kill him, and he realizes his father is just a murderous mercenary, and he saves Yeblidod as his father flees. He brings her to a fisherman’s shack, where her husband is waiting and Brandella is there with the unconscious Kishpa! The fisherman named Reehsha demands to know who Tanis is, but Tanis kicks Kishpa out of the bed, knowing he will survive into the future, and puts Yeblidod in his place.
Then the elves want to know where Kishpa is for the coming fight at dawn, they all suspect the humans will re engage, and they hear that Brandella was spotted at the shore so they all mob style, charge down, led by Scowarr. He finds the shack and Tanis and demands entry, Tanis refuses and after a scuffle, Scowarr realizes Tanis has something up his sleeve, so he leads the mob to the barracks to prepare for the coming battle. Tanis talks with Brandella and immediately falls for her. It’s like Tanis never had sex before and falls for every pair of batting eyes that look his way, it’s amazing! He compares her to Kitiara and Laurana and realizes she’s better than both.
Kishpa wakes up and heads to the barracks as well, as Tanis thinks he sees his father running into town. He chases the man down but a group of elves are there attacking him too. Tanis tries to kill his father to complete his oath to Yeblidod, but another elf kills him only to reveal it wasn’t his father at all. Relieved, Tanis goes back to the fishermans hut and finds Brandella watching over Yeblidod. She goes outside where Tanis finally tells her why he’s there. She refuses to believe it at first, but then he shows her the ancient piece of scarf that is still being knitted up in her room. She suddenly believes him, but I have a problem with this. I wasn’t 100% sure whether she was trapped in his memory due to magic, like Tanis is now, but she’s not. She IS a memory, how will she live as a human once taken out of his mind? It doesn’t make sense. Brandella agrees to leave with Tanis only after the siege is over.
The next morning a massive army, much larger, moves to the town. Kishpa realizes it’s a duplication spell by a few different wizards, so he does the same with a summoned giant spider. The spiders lay into the army decimating the duplicates and terrifying the attackers. The human army flees again, then the spider comes over the wall to attack the city! Tanis squares off against it and gets stuck in its web, Mertwig, Yeblidod’s husband, attacks the spider as it’s about to eat Tanis, and Tanis breaks out of the web as it’s facing off against Mertwig. Tanis kills it ultimately and Mertwig asks Tanis not to say that he was there helping. This is another curious ask, but Tanis accepts, and he is celebrated as a hero.
As they are all celebrating, Tanis tells Brandella that the time is here, and to meet him by the fisherman hut. She does and he tells her to write a note to Kishpa and leave this quill that the old Kishpa gave him to hide from the Sligs that started this whole mess with the fire. She agreed and quickly finished weaving the scarf for Kishpa and left a note. She also wrote Tanis a note and buried it at the death spot of the spider Tanis killed. At the same time Vishpa was following her as he suspected something was off but was called to Mertwig who is being blamed for stealing a glass globe for his wife Yeblidod. The elves turned on him quick and with no way to prove he bought it as everyone fled the village or died before the battle, he was looking for support from his friend, but Vishpa already told him that he wouldn’t help Mertwig get the globe as the dwarf couldn’t afford it, but Tanis couldn’t stand by. He told everyone how Mertwig helped him with the Spider and that he couldn’t believe that type of man would steal.
It placated people for a while but they ultimately wanted to put him on trial, Mertwig was having none of it and left town with his wife. Brandella met up with Tanis and they left, followed by an angry Vishpa after having read the letter, and Scowarr, who was curious about what was going on. They followed Tanis and Brandella to where Tanis appeared in this memory, and this is where the whole memory setup breaks down completely. If this is all a memory and not time travel, it would only work in places Vishpa visited, otherwise how would they exist, but everywhere they go it’s all perfectly real. Tanis is attacked by Vishpa as they are trying to contact the old Vishpa to leave, and suddenly they are taken back in time about five minutes to their first arrival. This makes no sense at all.
This time Tanis waits for Vishpa and fights him, ties him up and leaves with Scowarr and Brandella to the lake, hoping the old Vishpa will be able to transport them there. When they arrive there is nothing, so defeated, Tanis realizes that he is trapped in a dying man’s memory and will never see Flint again. He figures that if he travels to Solace, he will be able to meet a younger Flint and tell him that he is sorry. Again, makes no sense if this is a memory and not time travel. So they head toward Solace, and come across Mertwig and Yeblidod fighting off goblins. Tanis runs to help and they defeat the goblins, but Mertwig is wounded. Yeblidod is a healer, really in this era? But cant help him, as he is too close to the end, so as Brendella and Yeblidod search for herbs with Scowarr, Mertwig admits to stealing the globe and the shame he feels over it. Then he dies. Talk about a sad scene!
They realize the young Vishpa is following them so they turn to run, and are transported to Solace somehow. Tanis finds Flint, and buys him a drink at the Inn of the Last Home, which is currently run by an innkeeper named Hey, You. Seriously, its noted multiple times. I thought it was an error at first. They are sitting there talking as Vishpa puts his hand on Tanis’ shoulder and Tanis starts fighting him, then Flint jumps in. It all turns out that Vispa believed them when they tied him up, and he has been looking for them to tell them. This young Vishpa can teleport them home. So when he does, the old Vishpa dies, and they wake up in a garden in the afterlife!
They figure out that the garden is Huma Dragonbane’s who chokes out Tanis for destroying his flowers, then tells them they can return to life if they get to the other side of Fistandatnilus’ mountain. They head that way and come across ghouls who trap them in a pit trap. They begin tunneling in through the soft mud to escape and the tunnel caves in and water rushes in, as if they were near a stream. They wash up to the grandma and grandson ghouls but they dive under the water and breach in another pit hole. The ghouls chase after them, and Tanis and Brandella throw them into the water where they sink.
They continue to Fistandanitlus’ mountain and come across a village with a Gully Dwarf and Kender who tell them that it was not Huma and make them feel stupid for believing it. They take a bath in a minotaurs bathhouse and are dried by a dragon who tells them a wizard came and traded a spell to transport the living from the place of the dead, awfully convenient I think, and the closest wizard is good ol’ Fisty. They finally arrive at his home, and he is only a spirit and makes a deal with them. If they bring an enchanted mirror to Krynn that will allow Fisty to return to life, he will transport them. Tanis agrees, and as soon as the spell is cast, he breaks the mirror.
They travel forward to time and arrive at the burned forest lake. They find Clotnick who asks about his father. It turns out the globe he juggles with is the one his father Mertwig gave he wife Yeblidod, who gave it to her son Clotnick. Brendella goes to visit the grave Clotnick dug for Vishpa, and she is abducted by Sligs. They are convinced that she knows where the quill pen is. She refuses to say anything and Tanis and Clotnick go to rescue her and run from the pursuing Sligs. They travel through the night, when Brendella begins to fade. As she was just a memory and not a person, she cannot stay in life. She disappears and Tanis is beside himself.
He decides to travel back to Ankatavaka to find the box she hid the quill and note to him in. They arrive and see a statue of Scowarr. He digs up the box and the slugs follow them and ambush Tanis. He is saved by the statue which comes alive and Clotnick, much like his father saved Tanist a hundred years before, in memory. This line between memory and time travel is complete and utter horse shit. The authors use it as memory only when convenient, like with Brandella, then real like with the box brendella leaves behind. And then in the end, he realizes he wasn’t supposed to take Brendella, just her memory. Why didn’t Vishpa say that in the first place? It’s so illogical.
So Fisty decides to get revenge and reanimates the dead slugs into effigies of the innfellows who attack Tanis. He fights them off with Clotnick then the magical statue helps and he calls out Fisty, telling him to stop and give up. He threatens him with Vishpa and it works. Fisty stops trying to kill Tanis with the innfellows. Another illogical thought. Fisty is the most powerful creature in Krynn cosmology, other than the gods at this point. No other wizard can even come close. Raist only does it with Fisty’s own power in the past, what the actual hell? Anyway Tanis reads the note which basically says Brendella hopes he will find love.
The novel ends as Tanis decides to sculpt a statue of Vishpa and Brendella in the mountains, and after fourteen months finishes it. This novel is the tale that arose from those who visited the statue in later generations. Look, I suppose it could have been worse, and while I did enjoy reading this, it was total nonsense.
I would recommend this to fans of Tanis, the companions or Dragonlance, but it is not required reading. We don’t learn anything new about the character, or Krynn, or even the afterlife that Tanis visits. I have to say, I am glad this is the last Preludes novel, and I am not looking forward to reading the Meeting Sextet next.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Tanis the Shadow Years by Barbara Siegel and Scott Siegel. What did you think of the memory based adventure? Do you need logic when it’s a pulp fantasy novel? And finally, what did Tanis do in the remaining four plus years of his adventuring? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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