A New York Times Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
A Book Sense Bestseller
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Summer Reading
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Eragon, a young farm boy, finds a marvelous blue stone in a mystical mountain place. Before he can trade it for food to get his family through the hard winter, it hatches a beautiful sapphire-blue dragon, a race thought to be extinct. Eragon bonds with the dragon, and when his family is killed by the marauding Ra'zac, he discovers that he is the last of the Dragon Riders, fated to play a decisive part in the coming war between the human but hidden Varden, dwarves, elves, the diabolical Shades and their neanderthal Urgalls, all pitted against and allied with each other and the evil King Galbatorix. Eragon and his dragon Saphira set out to find their role, growing in magic power and understanding of the complex political situation as they endure perilous travels and sudden battles, dire wounds, capture and escape.
In spite of the engrossing action, this is not a book for the casual fantasy reader. There are 65 names of people, horses, and dragons to be remembered and lots of pseudo-Celtic places, magic words, and phrases in the Ancient Language as well as the speech of the dwarfs and the Urgalls. But the maps and glossaries help, and by the end, readers will be utterly dedicated and eager for the next book, Eldest. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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It was with reluctance that I turned to the book again, and I did so with the singular intent of understanding the remarkable success of the book. We can debate the merits of this book without end, but not its stellar sales.
And the reason for its success is simple. Not since The Sword of Shannara (or lesser works such as Niel Hancock's Circle of Light series) has heroic/high fantasy been dumbed-down to this level. Eragon is a book that requires no forethought whatsoever, little to no concentration, for all plot points are given away chapters in advance.
I don't hold any of the Shannara works (and certainly not the lesser works, such as Hancock's and others) in high esteem. What Brooks did with The Sword of Shannara was to rewrite The Lord of the Rings for teenagers, and in that he succeeded quite well. He didn't write an original book, however. The characters in The Sword of Shannara were almost one-for-one reproductions, with slight variations, from LOTR. Paolini has done essentially the same thing, but whereas Brooks had only Tolkien to draw from, Paolini had many more sources to draw from. And these sources pepper the landscape of his book like a person's salad who forgot to say, "Stop!"
We've heard that all art is imitation (and that therefore to imitate and even copy is OK); and that imitation is the highest form of flattery. In some aspects of art, literature, and life this holds true, but not here. There is too much imitation, and not enough originality.
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