Dreadful. This is a dreadful book. I read it because I was curious. I'd heard lots of good things about it, and was interested in following Paolini as a developing writer.
The book was written when Paolini was a teenager, and it really shows. He has ripped, whole cloth, the plot from Star Wars, the setting and character races from Tolkien, the use and nature of magic from LeGuin, and dragons from McCaffrey.
Also taking a nod from Tolkien, Paolini tries a couple of constructed languages, but where Tolkien work on his for much of his lifetime and had an understanding of the underlying structure of languages, Paolini makes up a bunch of hard to pronounce words. Where Tolkien uses his constructed languages to elegantly express complicated concepts or worldviews that are unique to the culture that developed that language, Paolini simply substitutes words for no apparent reason.
In addition to the obvious rip-offs mentioned above, the characters are shallow and poorly developed. Eragon goes from a farm boy to master magician in a couple of weeks. The same could be said for Luke Skywalker, except that there is a period of time between each film where he develops out of the sight of the viewer. We don't see his development, but because a significant period of time has passed between Episode IV and Episode V, we believe that it happened. Eargon spends no time "off screen" as it were, and so his development is nothing short of a miracle. In fact it is almost literally a miracle in the second book.
An argument could be made that Paolini could have used a good editor: He tells more than he shows, his characters are stick figures with no more understanding of the world than a precocious adolescent, and his plot is paper thin. But a better argument cold be made that Eragon should not have been published at all. Indeed, if his over-indulgent parents hadn't self-published in the first place, it never would have seen the light of day as it is now. And that would be a good thing. I have better written stories in my own notebooks from high school, and I would never want them published. It would have been better for him to receive a rejection letter or two, and a good dutch-uncle talk from a mentor about what was was wrong and how to improve it.
Eragon has the bones of a good story, but it needs a more mature person to tell it. I wonder what will happen when Paolini reached his 40s. I hope we get a "revised and expanded throughout, with a new introduction from the author" edition in about 20 years. I fear, though, that he is such a big name now that publishers will think people will buy whatever he writes, and so he will not ever get a rejection slip. Never getting a rejection slip, he is likely to think that his doesn't need improvement.
Life is too short to spend time on bad books. Skip this one and read The Lord of the Rings, the Earthsea Cycle, and the Dragonriders of Pern books, and watch the Star Wars Saga. You will be much happier.
68 
The book was written when Paolini was a teenager, and it really shows. He has ripped, whole cloth, the plot from Star Wars, the setting and character races from Tolkien, the use and nature of magic from LeGuin, and dragons from McCaffrey.
Also taking a nod from Tolkien, Paolini tries a couple of constructed languages, but where Tolkien work on his for much of his lifetime and had an understanding of the underlying structure of languages, Paolini makes up a bunch of hard to pronounce words. Where Tolkien uses his constructed languages to elegantly express complicated concepts or worldviews that are unique to the culture that developed that language, Paolini simply substitutes words for no apparent reason.
In addition to the obvious rip-offs mentioned above, the characters are shallow and poorly developed. Eragon goes from a farm boy to master magician in a couple of weeks. The same could be said for Luke Skywalker, except that there is a period of time between each film where he develops out of the sight of the viewer. We don't see his development, but because a significant period of time has passed between Episode IV and Episode V, we believe that it happened. Eargon spends no time "off screen" as it were, and so his development is nothing short of a miracle. In fact it is almost literally a miracle in the second book.
An argument could be made that Paolini could have used a good editor: He tells more than he shows, his characters are stick figures with no more understanding of the world than a precocious adolescent, and his plot is paper thin. But a better argument cold be made that Eragon should not have been published at all. Indeed, if his over-indulgent parents hadn't self-published in the first place, it never would have seen the light of day as it is now. And that would be a good thing. I have better written stories in my own notebooks from high school, and I would never want them published. It would have been better for him to receive a rejection letter or two, and a good dutch-uncle talk from a mentor about what was was wrong and how to improve it.
Eragon has the bones of a good story, but it needs a more mature person to tell it. I wonder what will happen when Paolini reached his 40s. I hope we get a "revised and expanded throughout, with a new introduction from the author" edition in about 20 years. I fear, though, that he is such a big name now that publishers will think people will buy whatever he writes, and so he will not ever get a rejection slip. Never getting a rejection slip, he is likely to think that his doesn't need improvement.
Life is too short to spend time on bad books. Skip this one and read The Lord of the Rings, the Earthsea Cycle, and the Dragonriders of Pern books, and watch the Star Wars Saga. You will be much happier.
Related Links: http://xkcd.com/483/