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55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Eragon, November 22, 2003
I couldn't call SF/fantasy overused with a clear conscience. There are always new worlds to be explored and new levels of style and skill to be tapped into. However, you need a certain amount of individuality to make a fantasy hit with me, considering the huge numbers of novels available, and in this I find Eragon slightly lacking.Paolini's age is certainly remarkable, and I personally believe this contributed considerably to the popularity of his novel. Otherwise, Eragon is nothing new. Other reviews call it "the Lord of the Rings for the younger set" or mention its similarity to Tolkien's epic vision, but if I were to compare it to Tolkien it would only be with shock. I saw similarities to orcs in the swarthy Urgols, and the elves with their pointed ears, white horses, superior weapons and overall loveliness and grace. The names in the map, like Isenmere, ring a little too true for my liking, while the fact that the book culminates in a battle against the Urgols outside of the white mountain city is just strange. Add the race of dwarves and Snowfire, the fastest, most beautiful horse the land has to offer (Shadowfax?) and you have a blend that is certainly unoriginal, if not outright ridiculous. If fantasy still has thousands of novels to offer us, Paolini certainly shouldn't contribute he gets his act together. Philip Pullman said "I read like a butterfly and write like a bee; if my story [His Dark Materials series] has any honey, it is because of the nectar I found in the work of better writers. . ." But what he took was the "nectar," not the entire flower!
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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Typical fantasy rehash by way of bad writing, May 17, 2006
I first borrowed Eragon from the library a few months back. I thought, 'the author's just a bit younger than me, and I'm stuck on the third book in my fantasy trilogy - maybe seeing what this kid can do will inspire me.' Or something.
Lordy - I couldn't get past the first chapter.
At first, I thought maybe I was just jealous of the author for doing what I hadn't yet done while being younger than me - though I didn't -feel- particularly jealous. Nor am I usually a jealous kind of person. But I couldn't quite pin down why I disliked it so much, and I disliked it SO MUCH that I couldn't bear to read any more closely so I could figure it out.
So, I let it go. Forgot about it. Returned to reading Melanie Rawn.
Then, a week or two ago, my sister buys the book. I've already told her my experience with it, but I play it like it was nothing (because I seriously thought I was just jealous of his success, even though I didn't feel it - yeah, so I apparently confuse myself), and anyway, she's desperate for a fantasy novel.
She took the book to work with her. And when she came home, before I could even ask, she was telling me how much it sucked.
After listening to her rant, I picked up her copy and read as much of it as I could stand. And we agree, now, on why it was so bad, and why it wasn't jealousy that motivated my initial disgust.
The. Writing. Is. Choppy. And. Emotionless.
(Yes, I wrote that that way to be ironic.)
Seriously. I know run-on sentences are bad, but not all your sentences need to be short - and frankly, sometimes sentences don't fit together in paragraphs when they're short like that, because the subject jumps back and forth. For instance (and because I'm not sure quotes are allowed here, I'm not quoting it, but using an example I'm making up right now):
>>Eragon's hair blew in the brisk wind. The wind came from the north. Barbarians lived in the north. The wind got sand in Eragon's eyes.<<
See, now if you added the useless barbarian info to the previous line (i.e. 'The wind came from the north, where the barbarians lived.'), the paragraph retains coherency. (Not a lot, mind, but much more than it currently has.) Seperate them, and the whole thing becomes a series of sentences that are marred by one out-of-place line.
Also, his usage of some words and phrases is, as far as I know, not quite correct. A 'torrent' of sunshine? 'Cheeks' flooding with tears? Someone 'diffidently' left, there are 'sheets' of snow, sleep 'overcame' him - and THEN he started thinking... There are so many examples of this, it makes my head spin.
Also, he leaves details out in the strangest places... For instance, 'snow blinds him' - not the sun shining off the snow, but the snow itself. How? Does it blow into his eyes? Or is it the unmentioned sunlight reflecting off the snow?
We don't know. We aren't told.
Yes, I know one should show the reader, not tell. But in order to show, one must give details - don't leave the reader to do guesswork when it comes to what your lines are supposed to mean.
And the wrong use of snow is not even the worst example of such a mistake. More than once, his sentences were so bad, grammatically speaking, that I couldn't figure out what he meant until I read further on and put the words in context. Which is something barely tolerable in a fanfiction author, let alone a published one.
Also, some things just did not make sense to me - and not (only) because of bad grammar. (SPOILERS to follow!) Like, if his uncle is so grievously injured, why is HE the one rooming with the healer, and not his uncle? Though Eragon -was- unconscious for two days, the healer admits she can't do anything for his uncle, that his wounds aren't healing - but he'll be fine, she's convinced, because he's 'strong and hardy'. And she spent, by her own admission, a lot of time watching over Eragon, too. Not the man who wasn't healing at all.
Yeah. He dies not that long after. Can they sue for malpractice on this world?
It seemed to me like a really bad plot device - the author wanted Eragon to wake up and talk to the healer, wanted Eragon's uncle to die, but didn't bother figuring out how those two things could believably fit together.
A lot of the book seemed pieced together like that, too - contrived ideas, with no real explanation of why things are the way they are, no real understanding of how to execute his ideas so that the reader understands.
There's a scene early on, in fact, where two characters are said to be arguing (it's hard to tell from their speech, as the dialogue is stiff and never really changes to show emotions), but they leave the place they're in laughing together. No real explanation on why. Were they play-fighting? Did one of them cave? It's impossible to tell.
The author's characterization skills are sorely lacking, and his ability to explain his character's motivations is almost nil. And it seems that nearly all the plot is given through speech - everything Eragon discovers he seems to learn through someone talking, to him or someone else. A well-loved plot device for all authors, to be sure, but must it be used so often?
Also, and I can't really pinpoint why exactly this is, but I couldn't feel anything for anyone in the book. Eragon came off as an arrogant, self-rationalizing bore, and as far as I've gotten right now, every other character is flat and lifeless. The 'emotional' scenes are melodramatic (from what I've read, Eragon sure screams at the sky a lot - do you know anyone in real life who does that? Anyone?), with each 'touching' moment rendered utterly unmoving.
People constantly mention this young man's age as a defense of his work, but I have to say, it's really no excuse. Not just for him, though he obviously could've done better; some lines hinted at an actual talent buried in there somewhere (not as big a one as he apparently believes, according to some published interviews, but a talent nonetheless) - but for his editor(s), as well, who should've seen the same errors I did. Who let these mistakes go by unchanged? That's what I wanna know.
I wrote a book when I was eighteen, finished the next one when I was twenty. Does my age mean I should somehow be excused from basic literary competence? No, of course not. Which is why I'm still editing my novel, before I send it out, even though I'm twenty-three. (Well, that and a lot of emotional/family upheaval throughout the last three years, but still.)
This book's publication does, on the bright side, give me hope. Because if this can be published, errors and all, I think I may actually have some small shot. >_<
Though to be perfectly honest, what really saddens me about Eragon is that, with so much praise heaped upon this utterly undeserving book, young Mr. Paolini, like all the most popular authors, has no motivation to improve upon his own writing except whatever motivation he provides for himself - and judging by his own published interviews on the matter, he believes much of his own hype, and will not be searching for improvement anytime soon. And that is a real travesty, because with effort, I think he might one day be able to craft an honest-to-God GOOD book.
After all, as others have already pointed out, it's blatantly obvious that he's been 'influenced' by good books, at any rate. >_<
So, in closing: I found nothing in Eragon to recommend it. The writing is bad, the characters are bad, the plot is worse - and all these things are wrapped around a basic premise (farmboy finds dragon/power/world-saving abilities he never knew he had) so unengaging, cliched, and filled with suspiciously familiar ideas and names that one may spend more time trying to place various `influences' than following the plot of the novel. Though admittedly, the plot is thin enough - and predictable enough - that following it is hardly difficult.
The only real reason I hold out hope for Mr. Paolini as an author is that he has not yet written more than one bad book-
Though to be fair, I have not yet read Eldest.
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I Am Split, June 6, 2006
In my opinion, Eragon (and others in the Inheritance Trilogy) was for me as guilty a pleasure as any chick-literature would be. Pleasure in the loosest sense of the word.
As a young adult reader who loves fantasy, I enjoyed Eragon at first. It had action, it had some beautiful writing.
Until I realized how unoriginal it was. As a young writer who hopes one day to get published, I was disgusted with the quality of the plot and the characters. The plot was recycled from many sources, from Lord of the Rings, from Ursula LeGuin, from Anne McCaffrey...the list goes on and on. Furthermore, the characters were flat to the point that would put a fanfiction writer to shame. (Fanfiction being stories based on published fiction, sometimes being very clichéd or of very low quality, and often written by teens. Don't get me wrong; many fanfiction writers are excellent.)
The characters were who I had the most problems with; the plot can almost (not quite, but almost) be excused, as it is extremely difficult to come up with something new in the fantasy category. However, the characters fit too nicely into their niches. Garrow as the grudging, bitter, father-figure. Brom as the wise, mentoring, guide. What was most annoying was how perfect Eragon and Arya were. They were good-looking, they had positions of power, they were intelligent, they were educated, they were magically powerful, they were skilled swordsmen (swordspeople), they were skilled archers. I was about to gag on the self-idealization; Paolini said that he based Eragon on himself! I'm not going to insult his looks or his athleticism, as I know little about either, but there is no way that anyone could be all that.
Paolini may have promise, but that is all buried underneath the over-marketing of his book and the fact that he was self-published. He has not improved within seven years (when he was fifteen to when he was twenty-two). I would appreciate the books more if I didn't know how easy it was for him to get them published.
This may be a great book for young readers who are not mature enough to read J.R.R. Tolkien or Ursula LeGuin; if it gets them interested in reading, I'm all for it! But for people who want genuinely good fiction, it is a waste fo time and money.
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