Release date: August 23, 2005 | Series: The Inheritance Cycle (Book 2)
Darkness falls…despair abounds…evil reigns…
Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.
Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle–one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.
Will the king’s dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . . .
Praise for Eragon: “Unusual, powerful . . . fresh and fluid. An impressive start to a writing career that’s sure to flourish.” –Booklist, Starred “Christopher Paolini make[s] literary magic with his precocious debut.” –People “The new ‘It’ book of children’s lit.” –U.S. News & World Report “An auspicious beginning to both career and series.” –Publishers Weekly
A #1 New York Times Bestseller A #1 Publishers Weekly Bestseller A USA Today Bestseller A Wall Street Journal Bestseller A Book Sense Book of the Year A #1 Book Sense Selection
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Surpassing its popular prequel Eragon, this second volume in the Inheritance trilogy shows growing maturity and skill on the part of its very young author, who was only seventeen when the first volume was published in 2003. The story is solidly in the tradition (some might say derivative) of the classic heroic quest fantasy, with the predictable cast of dwarves, elves, and dragons--but also including some imaginatively creepy creatures of evil.
The land of Alagaesia is suffering under the Empire of the wicked Galbatorix, and Eragon and his dragon Saphira, last of the Riders, are the only hope. But Eragon is young and has much to learn, and so he is sent off to the elven forest city of Ellesmera, where he and Saphira are tutored in magic, battle skills, and the ancient language by the wise former Rider Oromis and his elderly dragon Glaedr. Meanwhile, back at Carvahall, Eragon's home, his cousin Roran is the target of a siege by the hideous Ra'zac, and he must lead the villagers on a desperate escape over the mountains. The two narratives move toward a massive battle with the forces of Galbatorix, where Eragon learns a shocking secret about his parentage and commits himself to saving his people.
The sheer size of the novel, as well as its many characters, places with difficult names, and its use of imaginary languages make this a challenging read, even for experienced fantasy readers. It is essential to have the plot threads of the first volume well in mind before beginning--the publisher has provided not only a map, but a helpful synopsis of the first book and a much-needed Language Guide. But no obstacles will deter the many fans of Eragon from diving headfirst into this highly-awaited fantasy. (Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell
Meet Author Christopher Paolini Christopher Paolini’s abiding love of fantasy and science fiction inspired him to begin writing his debut novel, Eragon, when he graduated from high school at age 15.
"Writing is the heart and soul of my being. It is the means through which I bring my stories to life. There is nothing like putting words on a page and knowing that they will summon certain emotions and reactions from the reader. In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf." --Christopher Paolini
The Eragon/Eldest Boxed Set
Want to learn more about the series? Check out our review of Eragon: Here's a great big fantasy that you can pull over your head like a comfy old sweater and disappear into for a whole weekend. Christopher Paolini began Eragon when he was just 15, and the book shows the influence of Tolkien, of course, but also Terry Brooks, Anne McCaffrey, and perhaps even Wagner in its traditional quest structure and the generally agreed-upon nature of dwarves, elves, dragons, and heroic warfare with magic swords. Read more
Christopher Paolini was born on November 17, 1983 in Southern California. He has lived most of his life in Paradise Valley, Montana with his parents and younger sister, Angela. As a child, he often wrote short stories and poems, made frequent trips to the library, and read widely. The idea of Eragon began as the daydreams of a teen. Christopher's love for the magic of stories led him to craft a novel that he would enjoy reading. The project began as a hobby, a personal challenge; he never intended it to be published. All the characters in Eragon are from Christopher's imagination except Angela the herbalist, who is loosely based on his sister. Christopher was fifteen when he wrote the first draft of Eragon. He took a second year to revise the book and then gave it to his parents to read. The family decided to self-publish the book and spent a third year preparing the manuscript for publication: copyediting, proofreading, designing a cover, typesetting the manuscript, and creating marketing materials. During this time Christopher drew the map for Eragon, as well as the dragon eye for the book cover (that now appears inside the Knopf hardcover edition). The manuscript was sent to press and the first books arrived in November 2001. The Paolini family spent the next year promoting the book at libraries, bookstores, and schools in 2002 and early 2003. In summer 2002, author Carl Hiaasen, whose stepson read a copy of the self-published book while on vacation in Montana, brought Eragon to the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, which is part of Random House. Knopf published Eragon in August 2003. Eldest, which continues the adventures of Eragon and the dragon Saphira was published in August 2005, and in December 2006, Fox 2000 released their movie adaptation of Eragon in theaters around the world.
Instead of a lengthy review on how terrible this book is, I will give you points on the good and bad aspects of the book. Let's begin with the good side, shall we?
Good
-Murtagh. You have to wait nearly the entirety of the book for him to reappear again, but it's worth it. He's the only character I get excited over in this entire trilogy nowadays, and that's because he's now more mysterious than ever. I do wish that he'd described Murtagh's tormenting by the Twins rather than the exceedingly boring tales of Moses Roran. Murtagh is the reason why this book recieves two stars.
Sadly enough, that's all the good points I have!
Bad
-Predictable, there's nothing you haven't seen before in Eldest. I figured out Eragon's relationship with Murtagh as soon as Murtagh retold his childhood, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. All you have to do is watch Star Wars.
-"Borrowing" ideas from the likes of Tolkein and other fantasy greats. The elegant and beautiful elves in the enchanted forests and the mountain dwelling, axe wielding, beer chugging dwarves are all too familiar. As are the Urglas similarity to the Orcs. I could name many other things, but most of you get the idea by now.
-Preaching: Unlike the Orcs, Urgals are suddenly given an intelligent brain in order for C. Paolini to get all preachy on us about not being racist against monsters that kill babies and throw them on top of mounds of dead, innocent villagers' bodies just because Galbatorix promises to help them. I'm sorry, but I don't feel any sympathy for murderers, Mr Paolini. Also, he forces the all too corny ideals of eleves upon his unwitting readers. While vegetarianism is fine, it is slightly tedious to read about Eragon and his vegetarian struggles, because it's so unbelievable and two-dimensional.
-Arya and romance. Please, spare us Paolini, from your horrible, unrealistic romances and all of your horrible cliches! Hero falling for perfect elven princess, it is at first unrequited...heard it all before. Please, come up with something new and unique! Plus, you don't feel for Arya either, because she's unlikeable. She's cold, removed, and down right annoying. She's supposed to be mysterious, but she comes off as "try-hard". Perfection rarely works in making a character popular. You just wish she'd accidently get squashed underneath Saphira in one of her drunken adventures.
-Eragon. He is boring. So very, very boring. There is nothing unique about his character. You don't sympathesize with him, because you know that he too, underneath his forced "flaws" (oh my goodness, he has a scar on his back from no fault of his own and he accidently cursed a girl but he can now reverse it so it doesn't make much of a difference) that Paolini has added just to make him seem more realistic, is just another unbearable "perfect" character. He will succeed at everything, and everyone will love him and obey him eventually. I stopped feeling for him all together when he changed into an elf. If there's a better way to kill off a readers connection and compassion for a character, then please, do tell me.
-Cliche. For once, why can't a male be kidnapped? I'd love that! Poor, helpless male needs rescuing, what an original idea! Now, I'm no feminist, but the whole damsel-in-distress thing is getting really old. And boring. When Katrina gets kidnapped, you just go "here we go again...". You don't feel enough for Katrina and Roran as a couple to actually be upset when she is captured, as their romance is severely underdeveloped, despite the fact that it is made mind numbingly clear Roran will do anything for her. Most people would do anything for the person they loved, it's generally a given thing, not something special to the two of them.
So, in conclusion (finally!) if you would like to read this book, you're probably better off borrowing it. Just like Paolini borrowed all of his ideas from others. If you'd like a giggle, make sure to read Paolini's so called 'romances', and prepare to laugh like you've never laughed before!
Most authors improve as time goes on, but Christopher Paolini has gotten worse since his lamentably poor first novel "Eragon." This book, the second in the Inheritance trilogy, shows all the flaws of the first book, with even more on top.
For starters, the parallels with "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" are so blatant that it's almost funny. Oromis is a blatant Yoda clone, and Nasuda is an obvious rip-off of Eowyn. And of course, there's the "shocking" plot twist which we all saw coming from a mile off, in which it's revealed that Murtagh is Eragon's brother (identical to how Darth Vader turned out to be Luke's father...I suppose even Paolini realised that resorting to the "I am your father" cliché was one plagarism too far), followed by the phrase "Search your feelings, you know it to be true" which is taken straight from "Star Wars." Oh yes...and let's not forget Morgothar and Elessari, whose names are clear copies of Morgoth and Elessar from "Lord of the Rings." And those are just the rip-offs of two series! He's also stolen from the likes of Anne McCaffrey (the parallels with her "Dragonriders" books are so blatant that I'm surprised she doesn't sue him), Ursula K Le Guin, David Eddings, JK Rowling, and hundreds of other authors. He even steals from the James Bond films (the idea of Eragon becoming an elf sounds suspiciously similar to Bond becoming Japanese in "You Only Live Twice"). Note to Paolini...you seriously need to get some ideas of your own, or it'll reach a point where nobody will read your books as they'll just be rip-offs of others.
Paolini also inserts complicated words every few pages (his favourite one being "stymied"). Most of them are out of place, and none of them are likely to be familiar to the target audience. There are bucketloads of forced dialogue (such as the infamous "last words" exchange near the beginning), and the same long, boring description that plagued "Eragon" shows up here too. The subplot involving Roran and Katrina was dull and uninteresting, and will probably amount to nothing by the time the Inheritance trilogy is over. He uses the word "aye" over and over again, and endlessly violates the "show it, don't tell it" rule of writing. Oh yes...and there are his pathetic attempts at trying to sound wise and philosophical by sticking in blatant morals about vegetarianism every few minutes. All of these come to together to make "Eldest" one of the worst sequels ever written.
And sadly, Paolini is going to continue making these mistakes. He refuses to listen to advice from his reviewers, and goes around crowing about his ability to write with "lyrical beauty." The fact of the matter is, he isn't a writer, and probably never will be one. His attitude to writing is summed up perfectly in his now infamous quote "Characters are born out of necessity" (we could probably have guessed at that anyway, as he is totally incapable of creating a three-dimensional character). As any true writer will tell you, characters are living, breathing creatures almost with minds of their own. Unfortunately, Paolini doesn't seem to have grasped that yet, hence the reason why he clearly thinks he's God's gift to the world of books.
I'm not going to bother reading the third book, as I already know exactly what will happen in it. The whole thing will be a blatant rip-off of "Return of the Jedi" with even more "Lord of the Rings" clones thrown in. And I know precisely how the last scene will go. Eragon will give himself up to Murtagh, who will take him to Emperor Galbatorix. Murtagh and Eragon will duel, and Eragon will mortally wound Murtagh. Emperor Galbatorix will torture Eragon, but Murtagh, with the last of his strength, will kill him. Then he will die in the arms of Eragon, who will escape just in time to avoid death. Meanwhile, the Varden will destroy the Empire despite the Empire having phenemonally powerful weaponry at their disposal. Oh yes, and Arya will realise she loved Eragon all along, and the two of them will get married and settle down. Yawn, yawn, yawn. I certainly won't be reading it, and I advice people not to read this piece of garbage either.
And by the way, I also have a few words to say to fans of the Inheritance trilogy. I honestly don't think I've seen a more obsessive fanbase of any book or film series before. This pages are swamped with Eragon fanatics who cannot bear to hear a word against this supposedly wonderful piece of literature. They give low helpfulness ratings to poor reviews, and come up with increasingly silly reasons as to why its awfulness should be allowed. As others have done before me, I intend to refute the main arguments put forward by Eragon fans in defence of their favourite book series. Here goes...
- "He's only a child, leave him alone." For starters he isn't a child any more. And secondly, he's a published author, and therefore we have the right to criticise him despite his age.
- "It's a children's book, so it's alright for it to be poor." That is cruel and untrue. Children have as much right as adults to be given good books to read, and to say that its awfulness is okay because it's a children's book is just wrong.
- "I don't see you writing a book at his age." So what you're basically saying is that only published authors have the right to criticise books. Sorry, that's not true either. You don't need to be an author to recognise a bad book...you simply have to be a reader.
- "It's not plagarism, it's influence from other authors." There's a line between being influenced by your favourite authors and plagarising from them, and Paolini crossed that line almost from Page 1 of "Eragon." Many authors use ideas that others have used before them, but they will make the ideas their own, and take them in their own direction. Paolini has used hundreds of ideas from other authors, and not once has he added his own touches to them. And if you still think he hasn't plagarised from other authors, compare the names "Aragorn," "Arwen" and "Isengard" to "Eragon," "Arya," "Ardwen" and "Isenstar." The parallels are right there.
- "If you liked the authors Paolini stole from, you must like Paolini." No we mustn't. An earlier reviewer said it better than I could...we want to read an original, well-written book, not a flimsy rip-off.
- "You're just out to criticise it." No we're not. The majority of "Eldest" haters picked the book up with the intention of reading it, not with the intention of coming to Amazon and saying "Urgh, it stinks!"
And last but not least, my personal favourite...
- "You all suck." If you can't accept that other people have a right to an opinion, you're not going to get very far in life.
The Eragon fanatics need to accept that there are people out there who dislike Paolini's work (and justifiably so). But I don't know why I'm bothering saying this...the fanatics ignored all the previous reviewers who tried to put them straight, and I don't see why they'll pay any attention to me. But at least I can say I tried.
I have read many books, and just about all of them have a great story line, great characters, and have a little "new" in them I never read before. With Eragon I liked, but Eldest falls sort of anything I liked for Eragon. And Eragon doesn't come close to any of the other novels I read such as: Elizabeth Haydon, J.R.R.Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, Kristen Britain, C. J. Cherryh, Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, and Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman. I feel that all of these were shoved together to try to make an epic fantasy novel of dragonrider's. By the 20th page I immediately dropped the book in disgusts. This all seems so familar to me, and so boring. Of course, it's could be just me. But maybe Ill try it again when I have nothing else better to read. [I would give this review 0 stars, but it wouldn't let me]
Rabid fans? Yeah, okay... Why do we like the book? Hmmm... You know, I can't honestly come up with a good reason (and all the old arguments for it are LAME). I guess I just enjoyed it for what it was, though after reading a lot of the posts on here, I have to wonder myself: why exactly DID I like... Read more
Eragon is just in denial. He is afraid his manly image as a Dragonrider will be tarnished if people start suspecting his homosexuality. That is why he stalks Arya around like a clueless creep, incessantly spouting stupid nonsense about how much he loves her. Forget the fact that he doesn't... Read more
I think you're absolutely right about all the slamming between the Eragon haters and the Eragon fanatics. All the reviews are either 1 star or 5 stars, and they either rave on about how great Paolini is to have written a book at 15 (I'm not going to even start on that) or about how stupid you... Read more
Christopher Paolini’s abiding love of fantasy and science fiction inspired him to begin writing his debut novel, 
Our quickie pronunciation guide will help you get to know some of the names and places in the Inheritance series.
