Eragon

[Lord of the Mark]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Well, some of his things were in his room, which the landlord needed to rent out, so they put it all in a box for him, which he later picked up. It seems that the son left his book in his box - my fiance only found it later when he unpacked his box.

Cool, cool, You should try reading it, it doesn't have the greatest beginning, but the book gets better as it progresses.

[Jon S.]

Best first effort by a teenager I'm aware of. Seriously, are you all so picky about everything?

[me9996]

Only fanticy books,

If you haven't nodiced most of us are LOTR fans and as such hold higher standerds for fanticy storys in all forms...

And Eragon is a fragile story, if someone does to it what Peter Jackson did to LOTR you've got a certan warlock I am aginst
("wizard" to his friends lol )

[Acalewia]

I started Eragon today. So far I'm really enjoying it. It has had me asking questions from the begining. I love it!

[Acalewia]

I just finished Eldest. I have one word: WOW! I loved it! Now I'm going to have to wait for the next and final book in the Inheritance Trilogy. I have to say he is a very very good writer. He keeps the reader hooked from page one. Not very many authors can do that. I love how he keeps your attention with plot twists and plenty of them.

Hopefully we will see other works after he wraps Inheritance *crosses fingers*

[me9996]

That is one thing that can be said for the books, they do have a rather engageing plot
(Although rittled with overused plot devices to the point that it's funny)

[Nurvingiel]

I've actually read Eragon now. It was okay. I certainly enjoyed myself, and read it in one sitting.

Parts I like about the book:

-Arya
-Murtagh
-Urgals
-The plot moved along at a good pace
-It was very readable
-I enjoyed myself
- ... Well, at least he finished his manuscript.

Parts I didn't like:

-Blatant Tolkien rip-off
-Blatant Ursula K. LeGuin rip-off
-Annoying illogical things, like the town he was from. They were supposed to be poor farmers, but a large group of merchants came every year to buy surplus grain at what must have been generous prices, because the merchants also sell a lot of luxiries. They also bring troubadors. Waaa?
- Also, who walks ten miles, or whatever, just to fix a chisel? Why wouldn't you accomplish a number of errands? But, you know, farmers have a huge amount of free time
- Eragon himself has ridiculous skills, luck, power, respect, and learning ability.

He can use magic, is befriended by witches and magical, powerful beasts, he can do magic, he's a Dragonrider, and he learns everything at a completely ridiculous pace.

-The plot was fairly predictable; I predicted these plot points:

1. Brom would die, which I knew immediately after Angela told Eragon's fortune. 2. I figured Murtagh was either Galbatorix or what's-his-pickle, the first of the Forsworn's, son. I knew this as soon as Murtagh said he had something very important to tell Eragon, and was then ridiculously cut-off mid-sentence. 3. It was obvious quite early on that Brom was a Dragon Rider.

This is from the first page of this thread:

Many people say Eragon copies from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. What is your response?
Christopher Paolini: I read and enjoyed a lot of epic fantasy growing up and I wanted to write a story in that same genre. If I avoided elements common in those epics- elves, dragons, etc- I wouldn't be writing the kind of genre I wanted. It's what you do with those elements that makes or break the book.

Way to not answer the question at all, Paolini.

I think he wrote his book with a pen in one hand, and Lord of the Rings and A Wizard of Earthsea in the other.

These elements were ripped off from Tolkien:
- the elves that "came from the west in silver ships"
- Kulls = Uruk-hai
- Shades = Nazguls
- only Tolkien has written a Dwarf-Elf conflict that didn't seem completely artificial, so this seems like a rip-off (though in this case, he's not the only one)

This crucial plot-point was ripped off from Ursula K. LeGuin:
- The true name aspect of magic, including everyone having their own true name, the true names for all things in the world, keeping one's true name a secret because if someone knew it they would have power over you, and not everyone knows their true name

So. That takes out most of the good bits. Which means that in my opinion he's a fairly unoriginal author.

Another aspect I didn't enjoy was the complete imbecile Brom. This is the intellectual wasteland who decided to train someone to fight by giving him at least one concussion, but giving no useful instruction whatsoever in any martial art. Because he's an irritating little Marty Stu, Eragon learns everything anyway. That drove me completely nuts. Also, the pointless withholding of information was very annoying. It was just a weak attempt to build up suspense in the book.

Eragon is like MSG: You enjoy it until ten minutes after you're done, and then you feel completely unsatisfied and slightly ill.

[me9996]

The funny thing is that I though the urguls were the one of the few origanal ideas in the book... I guess the antlers through me off.

And by the way, do you think some of that ought to be in spoiler tags?

[Nurvingiel]

Originally Posted by me9996

The funny thing is that I though the urguls were the one of the few origanal ideas in the book... I guess the antlers through me off.

Actually, the antlers were a nice touch. The Urgals themselves were pretty original monsters, but Kulls weren't. Having genetically superiory Urgals who could move in daylight without problems, and who were larger and stronger than regular Urgals is a total Uruk-Hai rip-off.

[Acalewia]

I throughly enjoyed it.

It was kinda obvious that Brom was a Rider, though

[me9996]

Spoiler warning... But my opinions are in there too...

Okay, first of all it is a book that has a nice plot but is full of somewhat overused plot devises. The thing that most bugs me is that they rename thing with names that sound like monster trucks such as renameing pain "The obliviator" or calling the ra'zac "desecrators" when someone else called them something else. And the endless use of the word "Aye" But one thing when I found out that Eragons father was... What's his name, the evil Darth Vader like dragonrider? Anyway when I read that I thought it was sooo funny! I guess dragon-rideing runs in the family And there are bits that I'd rather were replaced with Saphira getting drunk (That was funny too, a drunk dragon... Hehehe...)

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by me9996

That was one of the funniest things I've read.

[me9996]

(Cation, some spoilers in spoiler tags)

... If a

drunk dragon

is the funniest thing you've ever read maybe you'd better read funnier things

Allthough it is very funny...
The very consept of a

drunk dragon

is funny.

I personaly think

the revalation that what's-his-face is Eragons father

is funnier...
As I've said,

dragonrideing seems to run in the family

But that could just be due to my strange strange sence of humor.

[me9996]

Something just occered to me. Maybe the kull arn't an uruk-hai rip off...

Not to say that they are origanal but to say tolkien wasn't the first to try something like this.

Well my point is that to gobblins (In LOTR also known as orcs) there have been for ages hobgobblins which are bigger stonger gobblins.

So uruk-hai aren't as origanal as beleaved but the kull aren't exactly uruk-hai rip offs.

[Acalewia]

Originally Posted by me9996

(Cation, some spoilers in spoiler tags)

... If a is the funniest thing you've ever read maybe you'd better read funnier things

Allthough it is very funny...
The very consept of a is funny.

I said it was one of the funniest things.

I personaly think is funnier...
As I've said,

But that could just be due to my strange strange sence of humor.

It was more of a shock to me than funny, although I was sure Eragon's father was a Rider. You do have a strange sense of humor

[me9996]

Yeah, I guess I have a strange of humor... But as your siggy says:

Don't meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

"That's the spirit! One part brave, three parts fool" Brom Eragon

That's good siggy stuff... And it's sorta my view on alot of Eragon.

[Acalewia]

As I have said before you are a strange one
Thank you, btw

[me9996]

You're welcome (And now for something... Compleatly diffent)

Can't anyone remember the name of that forsworn guy?

I can't and his name never shows up in this thread everyone just calls him "what's-his-face/pickle"

Anyway my usual spoilery rant bit on this thread:

Okay, first off the bat: all the evil dragonriders mentioned by name always seem to have their (sometimes dead) hand in the mix (Mixed metafores!! OF DOOM!!!) And he made the elves basicly stronger, faster... Basicly better than humans and I don't much like those elves. And his dragon stuff is sorta the same way, after all, dragons do hoard gold... Er... Would hoard gold, I mean, they hoard gold in all the storys (Exept this one ) Finaly the ovious Dragonrider/Foresworn to Jedi/Sith stuff... Ripoffing starwars now are we? But then again with us finding out about half the main charicters are dragon-riders and ol' what's-his-face being Eragons father... What's next? Arya being Eragons half-sister? (The book-charictar Arya, not the mooter) However one point to be made that isn't something about it I dislike is that with the elves speaking anchent wouldn't they use magic actidently sometimes?

[Acalewia]

Morzan

[me9996]

Thank you

The rest is in spoilers as it will have spoilery stuff in it...

I guess one thing that can be said for it is that Eragon is that the title charicter is a clasic Jack charicter but at the end... Well... Eragon is a fantacy book, not a movie (Well they have made a movie out of it but...) or a computer game. Haveing the hero be crazy powerful at the end is just nuts!

And well, that's it for now...