Eldest (Inheritance)

This is a great book. I listen to it on my CD player on the way to work and on the way home. The descriptions are awesome...you can just imagine what the characters and locations look like. I would definitely recommend this book. I can't wait to read Brisinger!

Paolini is a prodigy, no doubt, but he isn't a very gifted writer. Much of what he wrote in the first book was synthesized from other fantasy stories and from those elements he crafted a fairly interesting, albeit longwinded, tale. It's my opinion that his editors (if he has any) should've cut out at least one-third of Eragon.

With that said, reading Eldest was like slogging through mud. It was so incredibly convoluted and just plain dull that I gave up midway and have no desire to go back and find out what I missed. I couldn't care less.

I think his problem is that he and his parents are so impressed with whatever he writes that they don't suggest massive editing. If they do, then it doesn't show. Eragon was ok, Eldest was boring, and I'll skip Brisingr altogether.

I really, really, really wanted this book. However, all the Inheritance books in my town are always checked out, and so it was almost a month before I finally got Eldest.

This book was even better then I had hoped. Ajihad, Murtagh, and the Twin's 'deaths', Nasuada's appointing, Eragon's training, Glaedr, the grumpy golden dragon that Saphira humorously pursues, Oromis, the athiest elven teacher, Eragon's unhappy romance with the beautiful and haunted Arya, the revealing of another Dragon Rider, the hatching of one of the two remaining eggs, the concluding battle, and a starling revelation.

A thrilling adventure, well written, with honest mistakes and the acceptance of things out of your control. And the courage to fight, even when your cause seems hopeless.

Thumbs up Christopher Paolini!

Signed,
A average American teenager.

Left me wanting more, which fortunately I was able to get with Brisingr (which also left me wanting more).

Simply put, this is the most embarrasingly bad book that I have read in years. Eragon was a fun story, if a mediocre book. Eldest is completely devoid of story, and seems as if it were written by a seventh grader. I literally hate myself for plowing through 668 pages of this.