Kindred Spirits Review

Join me as I review Kindred Spirits by Mark Anthony and Ellen Porath, live! Share your thoughts on this first novel in the Meetings Sextet series, released on April 1, 1991 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/4aaSeuQ 

https://youtube.com/live/Il_w9o9vSqo

About Kindred Spirits

The origin story of a legendary friendship: When his new companion is accused of murder, Flint Fireforge must find a way to clear the half-elf's name

When Flint Fireforge, dwarf and metalsmith, receives a wondrous summons from the Speaker of the Sun, he journeys to the fabled elven city of Qualinost. There, he meets Tanis, a thoughtful youth born of a tragic union between elf and man. Tanis and Flint, each a misfit in his own way, find themselves unlikely friends.

But a pompous elf lord is mysteriously slain, and another elf soon meets the same fate. Tanis stands accused, and if his innocence cannot be proven, the half-elf will be banished forever. Solving the mystery will be a perilous task. Time is on the murderer's side—and he is not finished yet.

Review

Intro

Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Brookgreen the 21st. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Kindred Spirits by Mark Anthony and Ellen Porath. 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.

The first third of this novel takes me back to my youth. Not at the time of reading it in the public library, but before that. I think many of us, certainly myself, were picked on or bullied as children. I never found out what other boys disliked about me, but I remember their animosity going from not wanting to hang out, to mocking me, trying to fight me and throwing rocks at me. I can only assume it was in part or wholly because I was an easily excitable kid who they found annoying. I don’t blame them for it at all, as they were just kids too, acting through herd behavior. And I don’t bring it up for anything other than context. I understand how Tanis feels in this novel because I went through it too. He was ostracized by those around him, even those who were supposed to be family. That happened to me as well. But more than that I then saw that my own son decades later was going through the same thing in his school, and I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault. Like I somehow passed on some gene that made others react negatively. There was nothing I could do to change the kids' minds about me in my own youth, but I was mortified to realize that I couldn't do anything to help my own son through the same experiences.

I also don’t think being picked on or bullied is a totally negative experience. It made me self reliant, driven to be myself rather than fit in. It gave me the perspective not to care what others thought of me, and I believe it did the same to my son. We know it did with Tanis, who always longed for a sense of connection, a connection that he knew wasn't going to come from his supposed family, so he found it in Flint. I am getting ahead of myself, but I wanted to start this review with my rationale on why I connected to this story and these characters so strongly in this first third of the novel. We actually open with Tanis as a baby, his mother just died, and Solostaran entered the room asking if his late mother, his sister in law, named the baby. Its nursemaid Eld Ailea lied and named him Tant...