Amazing series ( )

Fantasy

Put it down. ( )

Having finally noticed that the Paolini has completed the series, after almost a decade, I decided to pick up Eragon again so I could refresh my memory of the names and events of the first two books. As a brief synopsis, Eragon is a fifteen year old boy living in a remote village. Upon discovering a dragon egg in the woods, he hatches it and becomes a new Dragon Rider, with the goal of fighting against the emperor Galbatorix's rule. He journeys away from the Empire to the hideout of the rebel Varden group, in search of sanctuary while he trains in arms and magic.

It seems to me that the prevailing opinion among the more "refined" reviewers here is that Eragon is a rehash of old fantasy tropes. Although I agree that the idea of a young hero discovering a magic power/object and fighting an evil ruler is hardly original, I don't think this detracts from the enjoyment of the story itself. My favourite part of Eragon is probably the magic system. In Eragon, magic is tied to an "ancient language", which describes things as they are - by saying something, it can be made so. The catch is that all magic requires the same effort as the actual task. Paolini has thus created a flexible yet structured magical system, which (I think) is a also a fairly original concept. The drawback is that unlike in, say, Mistborn, magical battles are less than exciting, amounting to rapid talking and thinking.

The blurb mentioned that Paolini began the book at fifteen, and it shows: the writing is not often subtle and seems tailored at the young adult reader. He makes an effort at creating vivid landscapes, but too often we lose out on significant details - for example, the fact that Ajihad is black is mentioned only once and is quite easy to miss, giving a very different mental image of him and his daughter. Other problems include the fact that I still have yet to get a good idea of what Farthen Dur looks like: Paolini has a habit of skipping over gaps of space and time as people tend to "travel for three days" and appear elsewhere. Maps help alleviate this, but it still feels a little discontinuous.Nevertheless, I would still recommend reading Eragon, especially as a primer to some fantasy as it isn't a particularly taxing text. I will however be interested to see how the rest of the series goes. 3/5 for promising storyline but slightly confusing presentation. ( )

It's possible I might have liked this more if I hadn't known it was written by a teenager. I picked it up at an airport before a long flight hoping that it would make the hours fly, but I just kept thinking, "God, this sounds like it was written by a teenager." It did not make the hours fly and I probably wouldn't have finished it if I'd had another book with me.

Recommended if you like LOTR fan fiction. ( )