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Loading... Eragonby Christopher Paolini
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Wow, holy Gary-Stu. I'd heard both good and bad things about this book. And both were true. The plot is really unoriginal, the main character is a painfully obvious Gary-Stu and nothing really surprising happens. Yet I enjoyed reading it. I don't think I am going to hunt down the next book, but if I stumble across it I might just read it anyway. I can see how kids who haven't read some of the places the plot was obviously ripped-off from could really get into this book. In a couple years I might suggest it to my daughter if she wants a big, long fantasy novel to keep her busy on a trip. (  )red_dianthus | Jul 5, 2009 |  1   Look, I love dragons. I love YA literature and fantasy. I love Novik, Cooper, Tolkein, Lewis; I love McCaffrey, Pullman, Rowling, and even Meyer. I couldn't take Eragon. I did finish it, hoping to the last it would improve. I searched through the pages for that one thing that would make me continue. I looked for a vivid voice, an intriguing idea, an original world, a character I could love, a plot that wouldn't let go. I turned up nothing. Bupkus. It's amazing that he wrote this at age 15 - but you know what Horace said; keep your manuscript ten years. I won't bore you by reciting the sources Paolini draws on, but I don't even really hold that against him. Originality isn't everything, nor is good writing (even David Eddings got some readable books on the corpse of Tolkein), but I shouldn't be groaning out loud as every exhausted adventure cliche in the genre is hauled out between new hard covers. (  )Cynara | Jun 10, 2009 | 24 Standard fantasy fare, except that while most fantasy authors lift their plots only vaguely from a previous author, Eragon is simply the first Star Wars film with castles. Princess flees, tries to keep precious item out of emperor's hands. Boy finds item. Bad guys burn down his farm and kill his uncle, whom he lives with. Old mysterious man turns out to be part of a secret order of knights to which boy's (now evil) father belonged. Gives boy father's sword and takes him (eventually) to princess. Dies tragically. Boy learns how to fly X-Wing, er, dragon and goes to take on his father and the evil emperor, &c., &c. The worst part is that the author, by his own accounts, sees himself as a mix between Seamus Heaney and Tolkien, but has a control of the language more akin to your average Star Trek serial author. There are some days that I wish my parents owned a publishing company, too. However, if such a boon would require me to become so totally oblivious about my craft, I would have to decline. Yeah, I know he was 18, but so was Byron when he wrote "Hours Of Idleness". ( )Terpsichoreus | Jun 9, 2009 | 10 Although Paolini does not write an original epic fantasy, his story is fun and exciting to read. He knows how to pace a story so that the reader can't wait to find out what is going to happen next. I did have a hard time getting hooked into the story up until around the 7th chapter but from then on, I had a hard time putting the book down. (  )quicksilvertears | Jun 7, 2009 | This is just one of those great stories that was good enough to read a second time. (  )ThinkNeil | May 26, 2009 | 1 0.066 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0375826696, Paperback)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.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 (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:52 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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