Release date: March 13, 2007 | Age Range: 12 and up | 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!Read more ›
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]
As the ever-hungry fantasy reader who can't wait to get his hands on a new title, especially if it's preceded by as much hype as Paollini second book, Eldest, was, I bought the book swiftly after its release and when I received it, immediately started to devour it, hoping it would meet my expectations (after all, Eragon was quite decent and let pretty much promising plot openings).
The second part, however, let me down quite a bit. Paollini, probably hearing that his first book wasn't considered "serious" fantasy, tried to write a more "serious" novel this time. The result is a bloated 1000 page monstrosity that could easily be cut in half. While the tempo of Eragon was for me sometimes too fast and everything was happening with the speed of LoTR-in-one-book, Eldest is about... five times slower. The fragments regarding Eragon's life with the elves could really be shorter, the real killer however are the descriptions from Eragon's home village. At times I had problems actually getting myself to read the book further, which is a very bad sign because generally I can go over any non-Baldur's Gate fantasy book in one quick read.
My dominating feeling is that Paollini was more focused on provin g that he can write a good book than on writing a good book. The language is overly complicated for his writing style, the descriptions are overdone - it's almost as we was trying hard to write it better than he can. I'm not saying the book is worthless - it's readable and it might be a good time-killer for those long rainy afternoons - just that there are quite many fantasy novels that are a much better read, both more enjoyable and more ambitious.
"WOW! THIS IS A GREAT READ! BREATHTAKINGLY SPECTACULAR! BRAVO!"...
O.K., I was just paid by Alfred A. Knopf to spout this phony ebullience, but hey, I'm desperate for that paper,(kind of like this author and his pub bookies are,) and I'm not talking about the paper that a pen is committed too. No. This book is summed up not only as an income fad,(Harry Potter is an income fad,) but as an income fad that preys with a remorseless pseudo-veiled plagiarism on other slightly-if-not-original income fads. If an author is naturally superficial with a cardboard imagination...then so his characters, his plot, and his fictional world is as well. Listen to his character names ...Arya...Murtagh...Galbatorix...Elva...Cornyhad... Cheesysauda...Lord Unoriginal...Hackneyedya...
It seems these days if your villain's name doesn't have a V, X, or a Z in it, then he/she is not your classically-sterotypical fantasy villain, and therefore not a contemporary fantasy villain at all. This kid isn't an etymologist, he may barely create token characters out of Tolkien's characters, but he is sure NO Anglo-Saxon/Norse linguist, (I don't care how many times he's thumbed Beowulf or the Edda) because these proper nouns are phonetically stale if not freakishly funny! Eldest's action is more jumbled and run-on then this paragraph is. WOW! It's rugged landscapes and tall mountains are suprisingly flat. YES. It doens't read with passion or reason... it reads with cash-in, and that is the only reason it was published at all. The big Harry Potter jetted in Eragon, Eragon is going to jet in more-cardboard-Eragon books, movie/movies, toys, video-games,
burger-king, mugs, cloths,etc. That is it, and that is ALL of it....
These Dwarves,Elves,Dragons,Wizards, and other mythical beings are sell-outs...this is WHY the inheritance trilogy reads/is going to read so remarkably and successfully bland...because it is bland. Bland 4 bucks. In the end Eragon can defeat cliche- evil, but he can never defeat unoriginality. But this is solely my opinion, as you have a right to your very own. Frankly I think Christopher Plagiarilini, I mean, Paolini, is a very ambitious young author...this does not make him a good author. Maybe I have been to hyper-critical, but hey, I will never recover the time spent reading this book and forcing my self to write a honest review about this book. I usually keep the books my friend lends me, but this time I literally threw it back at him, saying, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you call yourself a decent literate person, this book is not fantasy, it is not,...it's franchise!" ALSO:If I make any one cry because of this review..I am sorry...but I cannot retain these propagated lies any longer.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
It should be interesting. Potter will likely be released in July, with an initial printing of 15 million copies. (HBP had an initial printing of 10.5). In its first week, Potter will sell more copies than whatever glob Paolini publishes, which should hit the stands in August or September.
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.
