Customer Reviews

Eldest (Inheritance Cycle, Book 2)

5 star:		(714)
4 star:		(308)
3 star:		(162)
2 star:		(142)
1 star:		(280)

 

 

I read some of the reviews of Eldest and keep shaking my head......shaking my head. People not only disliked this book......they hated it as much as I did. AND anyone saying people hated it because its a Tolkien ripoff ain't paying attention. People hated it on account of it sucks. Paolini would take 8 pages to say a character passed wind. I won't be reading the next one!

In an interview, Paolini said that he didn't listen to his reviewers and BOY does it show. Eldest has all the flaws of Eragon (derivative plot, flat characters, predictability, etc.) as well as all the flaws anticipated for the sequel (derivative of Empire Strikes Back). I know that these criticisms are almost as cliched as Inheritence itself, but these flaws are so obvious that they bear repeating.

And rather than improving, Eldest has shown ANOTHER weakness in Paolini's writing. It's the same problem I've had with The Amber Spyglass and the later Terry Goodkind books. It's so preachy, probably in an attempt to sound mature. A good, mature writer would introduce his beliefs subtly and let the story teach his philosophy. Paolini hits us over the head with his beliefs in long, blocky monologues. No subtlety at all.

I bought this book because of the possibility that CP would improve. I'm ready to give up hope.

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]

This "Inheritance" trilogy has inspired more animosity then I have seen in a very long time. Their is litterally a great divide here, with many hailing Paolini as the next Tolkien, while others say that he will be the downfall of fantasy literature. Personally, I think BOTH sides are giving him way to much credit.

Let's start off with the pro-Paolini crew. I honestly have to wonder if you have actually read any other fantasy novels out there. If you have, you will notice that Eldest is saturated with cliches which Paolini attempts to hide by calling his work 'archetypal.' The attempt at portraying true love is laughable at best with the protagonist litterally calling a girl "as beautiful as a flower." That type of stuff makes me cringe. It seems to me that Paolini doesn't get his writing from real life experience, but instead from the many different authors that he has read before. Without experience, the emotions of Eldest come out as regurgetated garbage. I do not need to delve to deeply into the storyline itself for that has been mentioned numerous times before. I will say though that Paolini has got away with plagiarism. He copied names of places and towns, people, and plots by tweaking them only slightly so as to get away with it. For an avid reader, he fails at sneaking that theivery by us. It stuck out with each new page that I read. I must also say that I am dissapointed that Paolini failed to add anything original to the fantasy genre. Everything he wrote about HAS been used before; everything. That takes the excitement from the book.

Another problem I have is Paolini's arrogance. In reviewing himself, he said "I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best, and Seamus Henney's translation of Beowulf." That is ridiculous. Plagiraism doesn't put you on the same plane as the one you stole it from. HIs arrognace can also be seen with the agenda's that he peppers into the book, such as the assertion that eating meat is barbaric and that the human race is a collection of bumbling idiots. To top it all off, he feels the need to use obscure words to make himself feel smarter then he really is. I have no problem with a big vocabulary, IF the words fit in the context they are used and if they help get a certain point across. HIs words just feel awkward and take away from the flow of the reading. In conclusion, I find Paolini to be a literary thief who hides and sells his book with his age, rather then any particular merits.

At the same time, I think the anti-Paolini groups are taking thier opinions way overboard. Sure the story is horrible and contrived and rittled with cliches, but you are all giving him way to much credit. I have read some reviews that say he will be the ruin of children's literature. To me, that's a bit extreme. I see the Inheritance trilogy as a fad fueled by the vaccum created by the last Harry Potter book. When this seriies is over with, it will be forgotten and a new writer will emerge. For all of you vehement anti-Paolini people, you are feeding right into Pailoni's niche and are, by some degree, the reason why his book is so popular. Debate and conflict is one of the greatest marketing tools available. I also want to add that some of these negative reviews are a bit exxagerated. It's a mediocre book, (at best), but you must take it as it is. Although I am discusted at how much Paolini stole, I must reluctantly commend him for getting som many young kids to read. He succeeded in that regard and I can only hope that it will inspire people to read books of a higher quality.

I must say that all this attention is a bit baffling. It doesn't seem like it warrants it in any way, from any viewpoint. I will read the last installment of the trilogy for the sole purpose of a closure to what has been a strange ride. As a positve, I will say that Paolini has imroved since Eragon, although his style needs a lot of fine tuning and work. The Inheritance Trilogy is a rebound for Harry Potter. If you are going to buy it, know what it is you are reading and take it as it is. Don't expect any powerful revelations or philosophical intrigue, but maybe that was intended. Until the next book, I sign off. Thank you for reading my review.

Ok. First i have to talk about the author, Christopher Paolini. I would have respected him for his work, if not for the arrogant personality he displays all the time and the media on his work. What is with all this? The Inheritance novels are mediocre. There is really no genius about it. Just beacause he is nineteen is no reason to call him a teen Tolkien, or to call his books absolutely incredible. Say, pretty nice work for a teen. And that should be it. No need to proclaim him a genius, when he isnt. His writing has improved slightly, but it is still awkward and tedious and as the author himself, he is a sure arrogant guy, comparing his works with Tolkien and Seamus Heaney. The very nerve! I would have respected him if he had been a modest guy, but a self-proclaimed genius is far too much.

This and the fact that at every opportunity, he chimes in that he graduated at the age of fifteen. Excuse me, this does not mean that he is oustanding in academics. HE IS HOMESCHOOLED, He did not go to some public school. Not to insult homeschooled kids, but this means that he could have been a C student, for all we know. All his parents had to do was speed him through schoolwork and proclaim him finished when he wsa fifteen. If i was homeschooled, i could easily do the same thing. We do not have actual proof that he is a great scholar. I mean, if it was fact that he gotten a fifteen hundred on his SATs, or he has been accepted by an Ivy League, like Alicia Keys did when SHE was fifteen, then i would admire him. But we dont. And when i hear of people clamoring over his "graduating from the age of fifteeen" and his "genius works" i am highly irritated. Paolini likes to boast of it himself, calling himself "from a child who hated to read to a man who graduated from the age of fifteen" First, so what. I absolutely loathe math, but i excell at it. i hate science, but i earn A's in my bio class. And shouldnt he say "from a kid who hated to read to a guy who WROTE A NOVEL"? That would make a lot more sense. And the fact that he used to hate to read! That lowers my respect a lot.

Oh, and the fact that he says that he brings his story to life. Excuse me, Mr. Paolini but not really. The few cases in which i could imagine the scene was, for a strange reason, straight from the Lord of the Ring movies. Weird, huh?

oh, by the way, for the eragon lovers claim that all the bad reviewers are jealous. Excuse me, but when you say something like,"this was a bad movie", does that mean you're jealous of the producers or something? Puh-lease. And people claim that since all fanstasies are similar, paolini copying is not a crime. But there is a difference between similar and PURE PLAGIARIZING like paolini does from LOTR and Star Wars. And i dont even mind that as much as the writing style. i mean, some novels are about such boring subjects. what turns them ito great books is the style in which is is written. THAT IS WHAT THE INHERITANCE SERIES LACKS. A GOOD WRITING STYLE. I mean, if it was well-written, it would have brought up my rating a couple stars up, even. But as it isnt...

oh and i read some reviews in which some writer-wannabe said that people who critizised the books were jealous that paolini got the book published by his parents who own a publishing comp. Um, please. WE'RE NOT ALL WRITERS, JUST READERS! our priorities lie somewhere else! My god.

So lets get on with the book. As i said in my title, Eldest is an improvement after that utterly disgraceful novel called Eragon. SPOILERS COMING. Ajihad dies suddenly in like the first five pages. His death and the suddeness of the ambush on him is poorly written with awkward construction. Then his daughter Nasuada suceeds him as leader of the Varden, a small group of rebels, sworn enemies of the Empire.

Before we move on, i should warn the reader that the general frame is similar to Star Wars. There is an elite group of warriors, long gone, called the Riders, kinda like the Jedi, One of them, an unusually talented yet dangerous boy called Galbatorix (cough Vader) rises to power, destroys all the riders and takes control of the land called Alagaesia and makes it into an empire. Then a poor farm boy of no importance called Eragon (sounds like aragorn but is actually luke skywalker) finds a stone which is a dragon egg. The empire starts hunting for him and a wierd old guy in his village takes eragon on a journey. the guy himself knows a lot of magic and things about riders and then soon dies. seems that he used to b a powerful Rider. (aka obi-Wan Kenobi). And then the farm boy rescues the rebel princess in imprisonment, and then becomes a hero.

And blah blah blah. Of course Paolini has ripped off a lot from Lord of the Rings with his names and lands and creatures like the mining, underground dwarves, who are on shaky land with humans and the graceful, mysterious, powerful, immortal and beautiful elves, ruled by a beautiful, mysterious queen, and they hide in their enchanted forests and do nothing against the evil dude. Arwen is Arya, who helps Eragon and even matches Arwen's appearance. Eragon falls in love with her (aragorn and arwen love affair *cough*). In the first book, Paolini also ripped off LOTR the part when sauron is defeated and there's a sort of sonic boom (same thing happened when Eragon killed the evil shade Durza)

Well anyway, Murtagh has been killed and so has the twins, or at least it seems so. But by the blunt disposal of them by the author, it's pre-tty obvious that they are alive, since they are major characters and eragon expresses his grief for his companion in maybe two sentences for the entire book.

he goes off to Ellesmera to learn further magic from the elves, especially a crippled and retired rider called Oromis (obviously Yoda) and his handicapped dragon tutors Saphira.

Eragon flies into rages with an elf who is disgusted with eragon (i dont blame the elf) and pines and sobs about the cold arya, who is less than thrilled about his feelings for her. The author gives some political reasons why this is so, but in my frank opinion, who would go for Eragon, the loser and ugly guy that he is? Anyhow, Eragon learns what a vegetarian is, and has ridiculous philosiphical conversations with his mentor,

and meanwhile, his cousin rowan is having problems of his own.

Rowan comes back to the farm to find his father dead and his cousin eragon missing. He and his girlfriend Katrina are hesitant about marriage and the Ra-zac have come back and they want Rowan. After several skirmishes with the local villagers, Carvahall altogether declare war and after death and CANNIBALISM (squeamish ppl, beware) they escape across the sea for Surda and a better life. Katrina is captured and Rowan decides to kill people with a hammer.(WTF?!?!) Then after many tears and hammerblows they reach their destintaion. (one more ripoff is when there are these flying black creatures flying above them in the forest and screeching in this horrible, unnatural way that causes the villagers to moan)

Eragon, after another failed attempt at wooing Arya and just about transformed into an elf by them, he hurries back to the Varden just in time for the big battle with Surda this time fighting along them, and some Kull who resent Galbatorix. Of course they win, only to his horror,

SPOLIERS BEWARE:

"I...AM...YOUR...FATHER!!!". ok not quite. he finds out that murtagh is actually his brother and galbatorix's right-hand Rider, Morzan, slain by Brom years ago, (obi-wan and anakin skywalker duel in episode three) is his father. THis is pretty much obvious in the first book if you put the clues together. To make it worse, Murtagh is Galbatorix's slave and he is forced to obey him by ancient language-oaths, which mean that you cannot break it. If this werent enough, Murtagh, despite all of Eragon's training and longer experience, is far more powerful than his little brother. Because frankly, Murtagh has been trained by Galbotorix. And he is now a Rider. Yep the second egg has hatched for Murtagh and Thorn, the new dragon, bears a rider. Who is Murtagh.

so the battle of the burning plains or whatever is EXACTLY like the battle of minas tirith in lord of the rings. people are fighting on these desolate plains. all seems lost when ta-da, people show up and help them fight (here paolini substitutes the Rohan people for the dwarves) then ahhh! a big dragon swoops down from the sky and kills a king! the dragon's rider is dressed in steel, including these little steel-finger gloves, and when the dragon is brought down, the rider gets down from the dragon to fight by hand!! totally plagiarizing.

and let me guess. in the next book, ergaon will be brought face-to-face with Galbatorix. Ergaon will be losing, dying, when ta-da! Galbatorix's right hand man Murtagh will become good and help Ergaon kill Galbatorix. Yep. I bet you that will happen. MY GOD PAOLINI PLEASE STOP COPYING FROM STAR WARS AND LORD OF THE RINGS. JUST A SLIGHT EFFORT. Pretty please?

And i leave it to the readers to shake their heads exasperately at Eragon, who is as much as a jerk and awkwardly nobel as ever. here is an example.

Ergaon: "What is your name?"

Boy: "Jarsha,"

Ergaon: "That is a good name."

Boy: Umm, thanks.Here's a message from the council.

Eragon: "You have carried your message well. You should be proud of yourself.

Boy beams and hurries away.

see what i mean? my god, it wasn't like the boy travelled like ten miles or anything, he walked like maybe fifty steps. That line was so corny i nearly cried in disbelief that that had actually been put down on paper.

And you will grimace with disgust at the even more awkward poetry Paolini writes, after all, every genius fantasy writer puts good poetry; for example, Rowling's was entertaining, Tolkien's was powerful and beautiful; paolini's is pure amateur and feeble. i do hope the next book will improve.

oh, and why the heck is this called the "Inheritance" books? Nothing gets inherited in these books. Eragon didnt inherit anyhting. Murtagh inherited a sword from his father. big deal. lord of the rings i understand. harry potter i understand. why the heck would these series be called "inheritance"?

oh, and i was also annoyed at the fact that eragon, a farm boy with no education and illiterate, suddenly becomes an expert at reading and writing in not only in whatever his language is, but also in Elvish.

Being pretty much an adult, Eragon should find it more difficult than ever to learn, because it is proven that the older you get, the slower you learn things.

yet, only after a few weeks of learning, Eragon is suddenly reading and writing like its nothing. after a few months at Ellesmera, Eragon is suddenly speaking an entrirely different language, and writing and reading it as if he has been speaking it all his life. yes, he knows a lot of elvish words from his magic training, but i also mean adjectives and combining sentences and blah. seriously, paolini, get a life and please stop copying and writing terribly besides. sheesh.

The first book was tolerable given a good and quick moving story. In book 2 the story moves slower and is probably a good read only if you are trying to fall asleep. I'm quitting 1/2 way through because it just isn't worth it. Try George RR Martin books if your looking for a good Fanatasy read.

The first book was a fairly solid read. Not great, but entertaining. And coming from a 19 year old, the future looked promising. But as often happens to those who experience success very early, things start to go downhill quickly.

This book needed an editor to step in and say no. It is long and boring and the entire subplot with Roran is mystifying. Brom and Eregagon need all of their skills and magic to get away from the bad guys (which kills Brom), but Roran just needs a hammer and a bunch of villagers???

The time Eragon spends with Osmosis (or whatever the heck his name is) in the dark mysterious Elven woods reads way too much like Luke and Yoda on Degoba. And it just goes on and on and on. I don't blame the writer, the professionals around him let him down badly.

Any real criticism of Eragon and Eldest seems to magically disappear. How does that happen? Why does that happen? How many reviews from real people never got posted in the first place? Is it designed to make us think people love these books? Well it's not working, the word is out: Eragon and Eldest SUCK!! Eragon had laughably bad writing and if it were possible the writing in Eldest is even worse.

I have been wondering ever since I read Eragon and Eldest what exactly made them different--in a bad way. Eldest is the one that really spun me off my feet, because I just could not figure something out. I believe I finally have.

You see it is not what Eldest has and does--stealing from other authors, bad dialogue, etc... --but what it does not have. I call it heart.

A fellow reviewer once reminded us all that, "Good authors borrow, great authors steal." Well, that may be true, but apparently, Paolini has stolen the wrong thing.

For you see, a book is like a locking chest. The chests that Paolini borrowed from are all ornately decorated, some similar than others but all fantastic. It appears that Eldest's painter looked at that and was inspired, and thus took the rich colors of Tolkien and the brilliant pictures of McCaffery, LeGuin's gold edging and you comprehend the idea. The result was what many pictured, along with the painter, a very beautiful chest, even if a bit gaudy.

The people new to fantasy were enthralled, and I hardly blame them. The design is impressive,

However, what is throwing this off is where those who think they know fantasy come in. In some ways, they do know fantasy, but they have only scratched at the surface, revealing that first layer--the bestsellers, the well-known authors. They claim they know fantasy, however, and while they are fans, even fanatics, they still do not see beyond the chest.

True fantasy fans know that a great book really has two stories: one that is given and one for you to find. That latter is supposed to be locked away in the chest, but when you open Eldest, all you find is the same stuff on the outside. Where is the second story? All I see is more of everything else!

Understand that I am not trying to flame anyone at all, simply trying to bring across a point. Yes, fans of LOTR and HP may love this book, but not all. It does not matter if you have read the books commonly mentioned about Eldest, it matters what else you have read and how important what is inside the box is to you.

Eldest is box decorated in the styles of prominent fantasy authors. It catches the eye and holds it, but for those of us who know the tricks, and who know that the second story is the one for which we read fantasy, it is best to stay away. Far away.

It's unoriginal to say that Christopher Paolini is unoriginal, but frankly, it's true. As a trusting person and an optimistic reader of all genres I have never been so outraged by turd wrapped in a fancy package. "But he was only 15, he's a prodigy," gimme a break, the only geniuses involved in the inheritance trilogy work in the marketing department.

On a more positive note, the book has inspired me to write my own work of fantasy, the only hard part is deciding what to call it; I'm thinking either "shmord of the dings" or "shmar Boars"

Seriously save your money, this book reeks!