Reviews of Tanis The Shadow Years (Dragonlance: Preludes Volume Six)

Tanis : The Shadow Years. 

In all honesty, reading outside the traditional loop of Dragonlance novels is a recent development.  By that, I mean I have started reading novels from other authors, tending in a direction of lesser known authors, such as Scott and Barbara Seigel whom have mere Dragonlance contributions. 

Therefore, it is possible one can lessen some expectations and increase others; and that's the basis of this review.

First and foremost, I'll start off with the negativity - and on top of the list is the ever-weird character naming convention. 
In this book, Tanis is the only character we are familiar with.  All subsequent characters have a rather (ugly, I find) different name than found in the more popular Dragonlance books. 

Dwarves :

• Yeblidod
• Mertwig
• Clotnik

Elves :

• Kishpa

Humans :

• Scowarr

A sympathetic minotaur,

Place in the realm of Death :

• Behobiphi

The storyline had potential, in the sense that it's something that hold creativity to rewrite certain things without rewriting anything.  But, in this case, it just made Tanis's story absurd. 
His initial and most important reason that sets him off on that quest is to find his father, or information about his father, considering Tanis is 98 years old.  But the ONLY thing we read about Tanis's father is during their very brief struggle.  And then his father runs away, escapes and we never read a word about him again. 

The level of absurdity increases tenfold when Tanis and Brandella are suddenly in the real of "Death". 
Somehow, people since the dawn of time are there and Death is the length and width that spans beyond imagination.  Although somehow, they manage to stumble upon Huma, fire breathing silver dragons and, at such an insult, Fistandantilus. 

This point, more than any other in the book, showed me that the author CLEARLY had not read much about Dragonlance.  There's especially one thing that really bothers me about contributing authors is that they do little to no research.  The book was originally released in 1990, much after The Chronicles AND The Legends trilogy where the rock-solid foundation of Dragonlance got established.  To create a connection, a type of relation, between Tanis and Fistandantilus when there's absolutely no mention, no hint, nothing about it in the previous core trilogies is just bad writing.  An addition to the bad writing is giving Brandella a resemblence to Kitiara. 

Now, to the realm of Death again. Where to continue? A silver dragon that goes "Aaaahhhhh" and "Ooohhhh" following a "you two are good at this" meaning how Tanis and Brandella are adept at scratching a silver dragon.

Secondly : Fistandantilus and Huma. Merely conjuring a "Death" realm is ludicrous enough considering the Abyss and such, but to follow it up by including two incredibly meaningful characters that outline the entire Dragonlance series is simply ridiculous.  

A minotaur and a kender being helpful.  A grandmother and her grandson as fiends; do they age in Death or they merely retain the same age as when they died, never grow in a physical and intelligent way for eons until who-knows-when? 

Other parts that deviate sorely from Dragonlance is Kishpa and the fact that he's a red-robed mage.  Elves considering the Red Robes to be one step removed from the Black Robes.  Additionally, the fact that Kishpa can defeat and entire army by himself is FUBAR.
An entire village of elves acting like humans with the singing and accepting Scowarr so easily, and Brandella quickly accepting Tanis's offer, was really off key, too. 

All in all, it's not a good book, although I wouldn't go so far, despite my lack of satisfaction, as to say it's utterly horrible.  If you do read it, in order to enjoy it as much as one can, keep a mindset OUTSIDE of the original Dragonlance setting and characters.  And, be ready for a sappy romance novel, on top of it.