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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
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
I liked Eragon well enough and I was looking forward to this book coming out. As it turns out, it's a good thing I waited for the library copy and didn't buy it, because owning it would have been pointless. The prose is really rather tedious and immature, not to mention how unnecessarily LONG it is. I won't summarize; just know that the "influence" of other writers is starkly visible. There's little originality in the writing, and the text is ridden with mistakes that a good editor should have eliminated (e.g., the incorrect and completely arbitrary substitution of words like "mine" and "thy/thine" for "my" and "yours"). Overall, the dialogue is probably the most awkard part, with the next most irksome thing being the superfluous scenes. Side note: anyone interested in joining a rescue mission to free the author's thesaurus? The preachiness really got to me, too; the author seems to dream of a society full of vegetarian atheists who practice elf yoga daily and takes "mates" whenever they want to without any commitment. And yes, "aye" is used with obscene frequency.
However -
I did read the whole book, and I wanted to find out what happened to Eragon even after the stupid training period in Ellesmera that was probably supposed to be formative (actually it just ends with us having to accept that Eragon is amazingly powerful and talented). So, I must say -- with reluctance? -- that this book wasn't a total waste of time. No, it is not good, but I wanted to know what happened.
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.
You know when you read a book and find out that some character in it reminds you of someone you know? That's a cool feeling, and every time you read that book, or its sequels, you'll think of that character as that person you know, and therefore it'll feel much more lifelike to you. That's one of the marks of a good book: real characters with real problems and real ways to cope.
Eldest, though, is sorely lacking in this department. Unless you're excellent friends with a ceral box, you won't find any characters in this book that remind you of anyone you know. They're lifeless little robots whose only job in these books is to parade around Middle Earth (oops, I meant Alegaia, or however you spell that) and say, 'Aye', every ten words or so, despite being the only hope against. . .sorry about the spelling. . .Galboratrix.
Also, I don't really think that it was important to make Sapheria drunk all the time. Was that supposed to be funny, or something? Well, it wasn't. And if the dragon wasn't drunk, it was Orik. I'm having a very hard time beliving that these weirdos will save their kingdom. It would be great if they realized that they had problems and had to overcome them, but CP takes the easy way out and just makes his characters move along like robots, not questioning anything and dating hot elf chicks.
Yes, I finished the book. I never leave a book unfinished, no matter how dull. The ending is the best part of the book by far. In fact, this whole series would be much, much better if CP stopped trying to make Eragon fall in love with Arya and just made it one conflict after another. His battle scenes are the best part of his books. That's not really saying much, though.
So, why do I give it two stars? The battle scenes and Roran saved this book from a one-star rating. I look forward to seeing Roran in the third book, amazingly! He's the character I'm rooting for. As for Eragon. . .get rid of him and have Roran and Murtaugh narate! I'd be a much better book without that loser in it!
Read it with caution. If you're expecting something like Harry Potter, you're going to be very dissapointed indeed. If you're expecting something like The Prophecy of the Stones, (another book by a young author that's just a little short of being fantastic)then this book might just be okay for you.
On a side note:
[...] I just hope that people don't lose their faith in teen authors because of CP's novels.
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by Christopher Paolini
DVD ~ Ed Speleers
by Cornelia Funke
by Cornelia Funke
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. 
Our quickie pronunciation guide will help you get to know some of the names and places in the Inheritance series.
