Paolini's Inheritance Cycle

I seem to remember running into major phausibility issues with book one:

something about going from 'ordinary boy in the woods' to magican, swordmaster, and literate, while traveling.

But its been a while.

 

When I was younger, I liked it. (Also, on a side-note, I read the Dutch translation then, so perhaps the translator mitigated some of the bad writing). I loved reading book 1-3 and I liked the story.

But before book 4 came out, my taste in Fantasy became more mature and I started to like Dark Fantasy more. When book 4 was finally released, I didn't buy it right away. I did buy it a couple of months back, and I read it. Although I really disliked the story (especially that moralistic way to defeat Galbatorix), part of me (the part still in tune with the younger me) enjoyed it enough to keep reading. I guess I just wanted closure. I wanted to know how he would defeat Galbatorix. But if I hadn't started reading it when I was younger, I would've thrown all books in the bin. Rubbish.

 

What did he do right? He used familiar archetypes and a universal (if a but tired) plot to create a story people would instantly connect with (because they'd seen it so many times before) and then had his parents market the heck out of it.

What did he do wrong? Everything else.

Understand, I actually liked the first one when I read it. (i was 13 too!)
The writing was bad enough to make me do double takes, but underneath the bad writing writing was an idea I liked: Star Wars. I read the other books mostly just to see where exactly he was going. I haven't read the last one yet though. I haven't had time. Plus the bad writing seems to rub off on me whenever I read those books. A shame though. "Star Wars in generic fantasyland" is actually an interesting idea. The Eragon books just aren't self-aware enough to make it work. In fact, I'll say it now: the Eragon books would be 10X better had they been written as parody.

Something that mildly irks me is the soapboxing. Paolini takes some time out of his gripping narrative to slow down the already glacial pacing to slip in "subtle" messages about how atheist vegetarians are the ubermensch.

 

Personally, I'm amazed at what CP accomplished at such a young age.

However...the novels really don't sit as well with me now as they did a few years ago. For me, the dialogue was a huge issue, but that's a problem in lots of fantasy. The dragons and his take on them were very cool, as were the languages that he created (mostly) from scratch.

 

But he didn't really create a language. He created a bunch of words and then strung them together into "sentences". I have seen it pointed out elsewhere that he breaks the only rules of grammar his language is stated to have, leading to inconsistencies, and some of those words are just a pain to pronounce. Let's get one thing straight. Paolini is NO TOLKIEN. By ANY stretch of the imagination. So let's not praise him for "making a language". Otherwise, my list of elvish words from high school qualifies me as a linguist.

 

At first i thought the eragon books were great. I read the first one shortly after it came out and was eager to get the rest, but like others, I found by book 4, I had gone off them. I found the story too long and drawn out and the elvish language just annoying. However, it was quite an accomplishment for someone of his age.

 

I have said countless times that Christopher Paolini is my favorite author. He is what inspired me to pick up my pen again and write.

After the release of Inheritance, I sent him a letter. He wrote back a few months later.


I love his writing. I could read his books over and over again. I know people dislike his style of writing, but it isn't bad in my opinion.

 

Well, if the Eragon books touched you that much, um... good for you? If they inspired you to write again, then some good has come of them at least.

 

inb4 yet another Twilight argument.

 

Very well.

Prediction:
Steerpike's assertion regarding the quality of Stephanie Meyer's writing is likely to provoke yet another argument about Twilight.

Response:
Confront the issue directly so as to lower the probability of the argument occurring.

 

It's not exactly hard to be better than Paolini though. Just keep away from a thesaurus and give your character a flaw, any flaw, and you're set.

 

Eragon is on my top ten worst book ever list.

 

I've never read them, but I enjoy the young adult fantasy books. But if the writing is really that bad I'll have to check it out at the library first.