Inheritance

I've made jokes that the real title of Eragon is "Harry Skywalker and the Dragonrider of the Rings". Eldest is even more blatantly Tolkienian than its predecessor. And yet I was totally sucked in.

It's strange reading--and enjoying--a book that you can objectively tell just isn't quality writing. I could *sense* the over-thought put into the turns of phrase, the word-a-day calendar vocabulary, the alliteration, and hyper descriptive language. But I didn't notice that at all times; I did in fact get absorbed into the story. I predicted all the "twists" but that didn't make them less enjoyable. I preferred the chapters focusing on Eragon's cousin Roran to the chapters focusing on Eragon himself. Roran was on the more interesting and unique Hero's Journey in my opinion. Eragon was just going through Yoda training on Dagobah.

Another mildly annoying thing was the Silmarillion, ahem, influences. The dwarve's mythology was lifted almost directly from Tolkien's Ainur and Valar stories. Not to mention the Beren and Luthien parallels. Plus the contant borrowing of proper names. I'd end up saying the Middle-Earth names in my head because Paolini's versions were so close. There would be an inversion of some letters from a mountain's name and then, presto! A sword's name!

However, by the end of the book I found myself totally excited for both the upcoming movie version of the first one and the (hopefully soon to be published) promised third book. There are some very original ideas and some extremely fun uses of real history, like the economic power of lace. I look forward to finding out what happens next.