• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Paolini's Inheritance Cycle

myrddin173

Maester
Eragon, I read it back in fifth grade, which must have been a year or so after it was first released, and I really enjoyed it. As the new books came out I bought them within a week of there release, though by the end it was more out of curiosity than any love of the books. All in all, I think the series is a great introduction to the Fantasy genre but it doesn't stand up to any of the greats. I'll be interested in reading whatever he writes next to see whether the Inheritance cycle is the best he can do.

(As for the Paolini vs. Meyer debate, I would go with Paolini. At least he gives his main character an actual personality.)
 

Mindfire

Istar
Eragon, I read it back in fifth grade, which must have been a year or so after it was first released, and I really enjoyed it. As the new books came out I bought them within a week of there release, though by the end it was more out of curiosity than any love of the books. All in all, I think the series is a great introduction to the Fantasy genre but it doesn't stand up to any of the greats. I'll be interested in reading whatever he writes next to see whether the Inheritance cycle is the best he can do.

(As for the Paolini vs. Meyer debate, I would go with Paolini. At least he gives his main character an actual personality.)

You're a moderator too now? How many mods can a forum like this need? Has there been an influx of trolls or spambots that I was just too clueless to notice?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
As for the Paolini vs. Meyer debate, I would go with Paolini. At least he gives his main character an actual personality.

I don't think you can count that against Meyer in terms of ability, because it was an intentional choice. You can agree or disagree with it stylistically, but it wasn't through lack of ability to provide a personality. Paolini, on the other hand...well, I'm not sure I've read a traditionally-published novel with worse writing. An old Douglas Niles D&D novel might be in the ballpark, but...damn.
 

Sheriff Woody

Troubadour
I don't think you can count that against Meyer in terms of ability, because it was an intentional choice. You can agree or disagree with it stylistically, but it wasn't through lack of ability to provide a personality. Paolini, on the other hand...well, I'm not sure I've read a traditionally-published novel with worse writing. An old Douglas Niles D&D novel might be in the ballpark, but...damn.


I haven't read any of this series, but I assume the writing gets better in the later books...?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I haven't read any of this series, but I assume the writing gets better in the later books...?

Paolini? I don't know - I never made it more than a quarter through the first book. And I'm not one to put down a book without finishing it, as a rule.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I haven't read any of this series, but I assume the writing gets better in the later books...?

Paolini? I don't know - I never made it more than a quarter through the first book. And I'm not one to put down a book without finishing it, as a rule.

He does get better as the books go on. But that's not saying much. As for Eragon having a personality? Not really. He's more bland and uninteresting than pre-Empire Strikes Back Luke Skywalker. The Lego Videogame Version.
 
I finished the first three Eragon books, and I enjoyed them. I couldn't get more than two chapters into the fourth book, partly because by that time I had started seriously writing, and the prose was just so bad...

I was able to look past the characterization problems in the first three books partly because I appreciated the level of detail Paolini had introduced, but after reading A Song of Ice and Fire (which I read between books 3 and 4 of Inheritance), it just couldn't stand up any more.
 
Inheritance was the best book in the series. I've attempted to read Game of Thrones, but I just don't understand a single thing. I can see why you would stop reading Inheritance because of the style, but you really shouldn't compare it to A Song of Ice and Fire. For a debut series from a very young writer, Inheritance really hits you. It's sad, funny, intense, and overall AMAZING! I've read it twice now, and I always find something new. The book still surprises me.

I think you should give it another chance.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
Shouldn't a book be judged on the quality of the writing and the interestingness of the characters and plot, not on the age of the writer? You could as easily say that the story I wrote about a magical black cat when I was 7 was good for a 7 year old and thus worthy of being given a second chance. But if you didn't know a 7 year old wrote it, you'd soon guess, and wouldn't publish it.

When I read Eragon at the age of 14 I enjoyed it. I had read fantasy before then - some by Diana Wynne Jones, a couple of Pratchetts, a few others beside - but my writing up to that point was limited to the magic cat story and a few school assignments. When the film came out I quite enjoyed that, and decided to reread Eragon not long after. I didn't get far. So much of the plot and the characters just seemed like they'd been included solely because they sounded cool. They didn't serve an interesting and dramatic story, they served an author's vision of what "cool" is.

I will be giving the book another chance, though. I've got a reading list as long as my commute to work I'm planning on reading in the next few months, and both Eragon and Twilight are on it, along with numerous other books by well known fantasy authors from Gaiman to Goodkind. But now I'm reading with a very analytical mind, asking questions like what makes this popular? Why do others dislike it? What are the author's strengths and weaknesses? How well do they handle character development for the main cast? What about minor characters? How well do they dispense information? How good is the worldbuilding?

And so on. Eragon isn't far up the list, though, so some time after Christmas I'll voice my updated opinion on the book. So we'll see.
 

Gandalf

Dreamer
Loved the Inheritance cycle. I can overlook the writing style, because he began writing it aged 15, but also because I liked the storyline. His take on the dragons, and the elves, and, to a lesser extent, the dwarves (my favourite fantasy race) are different to most other things I've read. The books are unique, if not utterly stellar.
 
Loved the Inheritance cycle. I can overlook the writing style, because he began writing it aged 15, but also because I liked the storyline. His take on the dragons, and the elves, and, to a lesser extent, the dwarves (my favourite fantasy race) are different to most other things I've read. The books are unique, if not utterly stellar.
:bounce::bounce:
 
I only started reading these after the movie came out, liked them for what they were: simple, unpretensious, old school fantasy (though I didn't realise that last at the time as I hadn't read any new school fantasy yet). Eragon and Eldest weren't masterpieces, but they kept my interest while I was reading them.

In the latter two books, I think Paolini tried to mature the series a bit like Robert Jordan matured the Wheel of Time after The Dragon Reborn, except that it didn't quite work. There were some good individual moments, but Brisingr had no driving plot and came across as a series of vignettes. I liked some aspects of Inheritance, like the fact that Murtagh didn't die, but I felt that shying away from the ending and resolutions telegraphed in books 1 & 2 was a big mistake, not least because the resolutions he substituted them for were weaker.
 

Mindfire

Istar
I disagree about the books not being pretentious. Though they are simple. The classic archetypes are all represented and played straight, but I think that's a weakness, not a strength. Mostly because he does nothing with it. I never feel like he's putting his own spin on anything, just sticking to the star wars playbook. Book 1 especially has this issue. Of the three books I've read, I can only remember 2 moments that felt like the author's own: Nasuada's Knife Trial and the Urgals' redemption.
 
I don't know, I thought that there were a lot of interesting details in dwarf and elf culture. Paolini definitely put more thought into the world than he did into his writing style or story structure. ;) I did definitely enjoy reading the first three, back when.

The gap between three and four, however, soured me on his extremely poor writing style, and I couldn't get more than two chapters through it.
 

JamesTFHS

Scribe
I really enjoyed eragon when i first read it at 14. It inspired me to attempt to write my first book. I enjoyed eldest and brisingr for the most part and like aspects of inheritance but as ive read other works i have come to hate major points in the series. All writers draw from other works paolini is no exception but the problem is his he doesn't try to disguise anything which makes it seem like he is just blantanly stealing from other works like Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, Song of Ice and Fire, Memory Sorrow and Thorn, The wheel of time. This really bothers me but i always say you can learn alot from these books as a writer. Not in the sense of what to do but what not to do. Paolini was young and did accomplish something to be admired, he was published. The fact he was published is great for him but i just hope he doesn't view his books as a master piece but understands it is the first stepping stone to his career as a writer.
 
The Inheritance cycle. What can I say, I loved the first three books. Whenever I read them, I couldn't put them down. Right now, I'm on the last book and find that I can't read it at all. Many say he has a terrible writing style and now I'm starting to see what they mean. The only reason I find behind continuing to read them is that I like his take on dragons and elves. Oh, and Eragon himself is an awful main character.
 
Top