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crystalstarrlight's review against another edition
1.0
The writings of Eragon are the lamentations of readers...
Eragon and the Vardan have defeated Galbatorix’s forces at Farthen Dur. But Eragon’s journey has only begun. He must now travel to Ellesmera to learn the ways of the dragon riders from the Elves. Meanwhile, his cousin, Roran, must defend his home of Carvahall from the Raz’ac.
But you might recognize it better as:
Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance have defeated the Empire's Death Star. But Luke's journey has only begun. He must now travel to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Jedi from the last remaining Jedi Master, a crazy old alien, Yoda. Meanwhile, Leia must defend the Millennium Falcon from Darth Vader and retrieve Han, her true love, from his clutches.
In order to not be 100% negative, I should try to talk about the "good". I strove hard and long to find something admirable, enjoyable about this book. After much head-scratching I have one thing: Oromis teaching Eragon magic. Don't ask me why those parts interested me, but they did (few and far between though they be). Oh, no, wait, I have another favorite part: Vanna (White?) the Elf smacking Eragon around. God, that almost makes the book worth reading. Well, not really...
Other than these two very teeny, tiny blips on the "Eldest" radar, I found the “story” painful to listen to, hour after agonizing hour through almost 24 hours of this mess. Actually, I probably listened to less, as I tended to wander off mentally only to return and find that absolutely nothing had happened! It’s sad, when you’re reading a novel only to learn that half of what you are reading isn’t even important to the story. It’s either a big, red warning sign that the author is writing piles and piles of fluff or that the editor fell asleep while editing the draft. In "Eldest"'s case, I believe it was both.
As we saw in "Eragon", the characters in "Eldest" are terrible, starting with Eragon, our loosely-defined "hero" and a pitifully concealed variant of Aragorn/Luke Skywalker.
NOTE: Be prepared for copious comparison to LOTR and Star Wars, as Paolini loved both so much, he decided to write a fanfic with both of these. No judgment to fanfiction - I too wrote self-insert Star Wars fanfic - but I never posted my drivel to the internet nor did I make people pay for it.
Unlike either Aragorn or Luke, he is the most boring, bland, uninteresting, emotionless, stupid, insipid (yes, I can use big words too!) protagonists I’ve ever read. Eragon never feels anything, he just cries out in anger or pain. The audience never feels any of his anger or pain, we are just told he has it. We suffer through his never-ending descriptions of descriptions of descriptions of everything around him, told with wide-eyed awe that made me wonder if this guy had been locked in a box as a child. We grimace as he stumbles over wooing Arya. We wince as things that are obvious, such as whether the Twins are traitors (they are, it’s not a secret, you could tell way back in "Eragon"), are completely beyond him. We trudge through watching him study such varied subjects like electricity, magnetism, modern physics (Gravity!), and microbiology (yes, microbiology!). I suppose if this novel had been established as a steampunk novel like "The Golden Compass", this could have worked, but its incredibly odd to see Medieval Elves so enlightened (also, a bit as if there is preferential treatment to the "beautiful" Elves?). As if that weren't bad enough, then Eragon becomes an Elf...and my poor head, from all the impacts to my desk.
Then we have Arwen—I mean, Arya. We learn here that she is—GASP!—a princess. Really, did no one see that coming? About the only other plot twist they could throw at us is if she is Eragon's sister. She is the most distant, cold, uninviting character I’ve ever encountered. How are we supposed to want Eragon to fall in love with her when I’ve seen granite with more personality?! How are we supposed to think she is so much better than dwarves when she is the one to start a fight with a dwarf about religion (she barges into their temple and begins to tell them how stupid they are to believe in gods with no provocation)? Why are we supposed to feel anything when she reunites with her mother, Queen Iszlanzardi? And what the heck was the beef between them anyway? Why bother to bring it up if there isn’t even going to be a fight or a growth or a purpose to the difference of opinion?
Then we have the poor forsaken Gimli-clone that accompanies Eragon. He is almost completely forgotten in the book, so much so that the author at one point finally remembers him and has Eragon comment on it. Why is he even in this book? What does he contribute to the story? Oh, right, can't knock a story when there really isn't one.
If you haven't already noticed, most of the characters can draw direct lines to their predecessor from Star Wars and LOTR. Eragon is Aragorn/Luke, Arya is Arwen/Leia, Murtagh is Han, Galbatorix is the Emperor/Darth Vader, Morzan is Darth Vader, Brom is Obi-Wan, Nasuada is Eowyn, Ajihad is Theoden, the Twins are Wormtongue, Orik is Chewbacca, Oromis is Yoda, Roran is Leia, Katrina is Han Solo…about the only character that could possibly be considered his own is Angela, but even she is supposedly based off Paolini's real life sister. That doesn’t even include the Dwarves, Elves and Orcs (called Urgals) which borrow from established tropes in Lord of the Rings.
To be fair, there's nothing wrong necessarily with fanfiction or even taking a fanfiction story and revamping it for an original series. We all must start somewhere when it comes to writing, and fanfiction can be a great place to play around with characters, motivations, story development and surroundings. In the hands of a good author, one could take that further - make an homage to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings with a few characters and then build off that to make it their own. However, in Paolini's case, he was a young writer so most of his characters aren't just inspirations of those from other franchises but outright copies with different names.
Worse than the characters, which I could at least stand in "Eragon" (I’ll admit, Brom was my favorite), the story is hideously, mind-numbingly boring. Absolutely nothing happens throughout the book! It’s all a long, boring retelling of journeys: one of Eragon’s and another of Roran’s.
Eragon is sent to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Jedi under the tutelage of Yoda, the Last Jedi.
Oops, I meant Eragon is sent to Ellesmera to learn the ways of the Dragon Riders under the tutelage of Oromis, the actual last Dragon Rider. It's so easy to make that mistake, since not only did Paolini steal SW characters, but also stole the entire plot of The Empire Strikes Back.
Now, I realize that "Eragon"'s plot was pretty much identical to A New Hope. But I could at least ignore the similarities by getting lost in the fast pace of the novel. "Eldest" doesn't even bother to disguise the plot, preferring to spend pages upon pages on nothing.
Unpopular Opinion: In his quest to copy his favorite franchises, Paolini replicated one of Tolkien's worst traits - the inability to get to the point.
It lingers too long in Farthen Dur, too long on the journey to Ellesmera, so that Eragon doesn't even reach it until around Chapter 27 (which might not sound like much since the book is a freakin' 77 chapter doorstopper, but when you are listening to it hour after agonizing hour, it is forever). So what happens in those 27 chapters? Well, if you guessed fighting battles, intense chase scenes, or standoffs with the bad guys, go to the corner and sit there and think about what you just did!! No, Paolini fills his "epic" fantasy with each agonizing step of the journey. I wouldn’t be surprised if Paolini detailed each day of the journey. Every stop is given in excruciating detail. Every race Eragon meets gives him long, boring lectures about their culture, their language, their religion, their clothes…anything and everything to pad this story out. Every trip down a river, every haul up a hill is recounted, every time they sent up camp...be prepared for a nap, folks!
Even when we finally get to Ellesmera, the story doesn’t pick up. Instead, we trudge through Eragon’s thoughts about ants (THRILLS!), Oromis’ mind-boggling lessons on morality and ethics (CHILLS!), and Paolini’s barely concealed opinions on religion, veganism, and marriage (may I climb out the window SILLS?). No wonder my favorite part was where Vanna whips Eragon. That's the only scene where anything happens!
The second “story” is Roran’s story of what happened in Carvahall. Wasn't that the guy who scooted off at the beginning of Eragon to try to make money to marry that chick? So...why is he here? Why was he ignored all through "Eragon" but now his story is important? Roran leads his people, Moses-like, out of Carvahall to the South to the safety of the Vardan. I have loads of insults for the stupidity of the townfolk, leaving their village at the whim of one man, to the clichéd motivational speech Roran gives, to yet another damsel-in-distress (women in these novels get kidnapped far too easily in these types of novels), to another horrible, awkward romance, to the complete misunderstanding of how the world works, but I really don’t care enough about this part to dredge them up. Insert your own witticisms here.
By the way, has anyone noticed that there is little explanation to why the Empire is bad? Okay, so we have the Raz’ac killing the folks of Carvahall, but that is only because of Eragon/Roran, and only because the dragon egg was stolen from Galbatorix. Last time I checked, thieves were punishable by law. If someone had stolen something from Eragon, he darn well would have gotten a horse and rode off to beat that thief's @ss...why wouldn't the government do something similar? If given the mind, one could reason that the Vardan are the enemies, for stealing, for being terrorists, and for being traitors to the government (and with how corrupt the Council are, an odd bit of realism in this stereotypical fantasy, it’s not a hard thought to wrap your head around). If you are going to make bad guys, you show them being bad guys. You show Galbatorix and Morzan killing people, oppressing people, stealing for no reason, burning down rows of pretty blue flowers, etc., not just tell the audience they are bad and expect us to root for Eragon and the Vardan.
Now we get to the fun part: the writing style. Oh, God Almighty, the writing style. Paolini is very aware he’s trying to write an epic, because it sounds just like an epic should. Well, a quick glance shows it sounding like an epic should. If you read with any modicum of attention, you'll see that it reads like the worst LOTR fanfiction on the internet. Too much time is spent on needless descriptions (Oh, yes, let’s describe each of the Dwarves gods and goddesses!), padded wording, and clichéd phrases. Some of the worst passages I’ve found include:
And then, of course, as I’ve briefly touched on earlier, Paolini breaks some of the author’s Golden Rules. “Show, don’t tell”. “Good prose should be invisible”. “Don’t lose the pacing by trying to describe your setting”. “The word ‘said’ is your best friend in dialogue.” And so on.
And now, I get into the audiobook. Most of the time, I don’t bother to comment, as the narrators do a good job at narrating. But I absolutely hated one thing about this narrator: his dragon voices. Most of the other characters were okay, even if they were indistinguishable from each other (but oh well, audiobook narrators come in different flavors), but the absolute low point was the dragons. For the dragons, the narrator growled in a low, deep, raspy voice. This wasn’t bad for a short sentence here and there, but for long, long, long passages (which Paolini writes a lot of), it was so bad, I was very close to skipping over the section, just to stop listening to the horrible voice.
If you are interested in reading a cross-over fan fiction of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, I recommend you go to fan-fiction.net. If you want to read horrible characters, unending descriptions, bad romance, and a thin as plastic wrap plot stretched over 71 chapters that reads like Star Wars with characters and settings from Lord of the Rings, read "Eldest". If you didn’t like "Eragon", "Eldest" will only make you madder.
Eragon and the Vardan have defeated Galbatorix’s forces at Farthen Dur. But Eragon’s journey has only begun. He must now travel to Ellesmera to learn the ways of the dragon riders from the Elves. Meanwhile, his cousin, Roran, must defend his home of Carvahall from the Raz’ac.
But you might recognize it better as:
Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance have defeated the Empire's Death Star. But Luke's journey has only begun. He must now travel to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Jedi from the last remaining Jedi Master, a crazy old alien, Yoda. Meanwhile, Leia must defend the Millennium Falcon from Darth Vader and retrieve Han, her true love, from his clutches.
In order to not be 100% negative, I should try to talk about the "good". I strove hard and long to find something admirable, enjoyable about this book. After much head-scratching I have one thing: Oromis teaching Eragon magic. Don't ask me why those parts interested me, but they did (few and far between though they be). Oh, no, wait, I have another favorite part: Vanna (White?) the Elf smacking Eragon around. God, that almost makes the book worth reading. Well, not really...
Other than these two very teeny, tiny blips on the "Eldest" radar, I found the “story” painful to listen to, hour after agonizing hour through almost 24 hours of this mess. Actually, I probably listened to less, as I tended to wander off mentally only to return and find that absolutely nothing had happened! It’s sad, when you’re reading a novel only to learn that half of what you are reading isn’t even important to the story. It’s either a big, red warning sign that the author is writing piles and piles of fluff or that the editor fell asleep while editing the draft. In "Eldest"'s case, I believe it was both.
As we saw in "Eragon", the characters in "Eldest" are terrible, starting with Eragon, our loosely-defined "hero" and a pitifully concealed variant of Aragorn/Luke Skywalker.
NOTE: Be prepared for copious comparison to LOTR and Star Wars, as Paolini loved both so much, he decided to write a fanfic with both of these. No judgment to fanfiction - I too wrote self-insert Star Wars fanfic - but I never posted my drivel to the internet nor did I make people pay for it.
Unlike either Aragorn or Luke, he is the most boring, bland, uninteresting, emotionless, stupid, insipid (yes, I can use big words too!) protagonists I’ve ever read. Eragon never feels anything, he just cries out in anger or pain. The audience never feels any of his anger or pain, we are just told he has it. We suffer through his never-ending descriptions of descriptions of descriptions of everything around him, told with wide-eyed awe that made me wonder if this guy had been locked in a box as a child. We grimace as he stumbles over wooing Arya. We wince as things that are obvious, such as whether the Twins are traitors (they are, it’s not a secret, you could tell way back in "Eragon"), are completely beyond him. We trudge through watching him study such varied subjects like electricity, magnetism, modern physics (Gravity!), and microbiology (yes, microbiology!). I suppose if this novel had been established as a steampunk novel like "The Golden Compass", this could have worked, but its incredibly odd to see Medieval Elves so enlightened (also, a bit as if there is preferential treatment to the "beautiful" Elves?). As if that weren't bad enough, then Eragon becomes an Elf...and my poor head, from all the impacts to my desk.
Then we have Arwen—I mean, Arya. We learn here that she is—GASP!—a princess. Really, did no one see that coming? About the only other plot twist they could throw at us is if she is Eragon's sister. She is the most distant, cold, uninviting character I’ve ever encountered. How are we supposed to want Eragon to fall in love with her when I’ve seen granite with more personality?! How are we supposed to think she is so much better than dwarves when she is the one to start a fight with a dwarf about religion (she barges into their temple and begins to tell them how stupid they are to believe in gods with no provocation)? Why are we supposed to feel anything when she reunites with her mother, Queen Iszlanzardi? And what the heck was the beef between them anyway? Why bother to bring it up if there isn’t even going to be a fight or a growth or a purpose to the difference of opinion?
Then we have the poor forsaken Gimli-clone that accompanies Eragon. He is almost completely forgotten in the book, so much so that the author at one point finally remembers him and has Eragon comment on it. Why is he even in this book? What does he contribute to the story? Oh, right, can't knock a story when there really isn't one.
If you haven't already noticed, most of the characters can draw direct lines to their predecessor from Star Wars and LOTR. Eragon is Aragorn/Luke, Arya is Arwen/Leia, Murtagh is Han, Galbatorix is the Emperor/Darth Vader, Morzan is Darth Vader, Brom is Obi-Wan, Nasuada is Eowyn, Ajihad is Theoden, the Twins are Wormtongue, Orik is Chewbacca, Oromis is Yoda, Roran is Leia, Katrina is Han Solo…about the only character that could possibly be considered his own is Angela, but even she is supposedly based off Paolini's real life sister. That doesn’t even include the Dwarves, Elves and Orcs (called Urgals) which borrow from established tropes in Lord of the Rings.
To be fair, there's nothing wrong necessarily with fanfiction or even taking a fanfiction story and revamping it for an original series. We all must start somewhere when it comes to writing, and fanfiction can be a great place to play around with characters, motivations, story development and surroundings. In the hands of a good author, one could take that further - make an homage to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings with a few characters and then build off that to make it their own. However, in Paolini's case, he was a young writer so most of his characters aren't just inspirations of those from other franchises but outright copies with different names.
Worse than the characters, which I could at least stand in "Eragon" (I’ll admit, Brom was my favorite), the story is hideously, mind-numbingly boring. Absolutely nothing happens throughout the book! It’s all a long, boring retelling of journeys: one of Eragon’s and another of Roran’s.
Eragon is sent to Dagobah to learn the ways of the Jedi under the tutelage of Yoda, the Last Jedi.
Oops, I meant Eragon is sent to Ellesmera to learn the ways of the Dragon Riders under the tutelage of Oromis, the actual last Dragon Rider. It's so easy to make that mistake, since not only did Paolini steal SW characters, but also stole the entire plot of The Empire Strikes Back.
Now, I realize that "Eragon"'s plot was pretty much identical to A New Hope. But I could at least ignore the similarities by getting lost in the fast pace of the novel. "Eldest" doesn't even bother to disguise the plot, preferring to spend pages upon pages on nothing.
Unpopular Opinion: In his quest to copy his favorite franchises, Paolini replicated one of Tolkien's worst traits - the inability to get to the point.
It lingers too long in Farthen Dur, too long on the journey to Ellesmera, so that Eragon doesn't even reach it until around Chapter 27 (which might not sound like much since the book is a freakin' 77 chapter doorstopper, but when you are listening to it hour after agonizing hour, it is forever). So what happens in those 27 chapters? Well, if you guessed fighting battles, intense chase scenes, or standoffs with the bad guys, go to the corner and sit there and think about what you just did!! No, Paolini fills his "epic" fantasy with each agonizing step of the journey. I wouldn’t be surprised if Paolini detailed each day of the journey. Every stop is given in excruciating detail. Every race Eragon meets gives him long, boring lectures about their culture, their language, their religion, their clothes…anything and everything to pad this story out. Every trip down a river, every haul up a hill is recounted, every time they sent up camp...be prepared for a nap, folks!
Even when we finally get to Ellesmera, the story doesn’t pick up. Instead, we trudge through Eragon’s thoughts about ants (THRILLS!), Oromis’ mind-boggling lessons on morality and ethics (CHILLS!), and Paolini’s barely concealed opinions on religion, veganism, and marriage (may I climb out the window SILLS?). No wonder my favorite part was where Vanna whips Eragon. That's the only scene where anything happens!
The second “story” is Roran’s story of what happened in Carvahall. Wasn't that the guy who scooted off at the beginning of Eragon to try to make money to marry that chick? So...why is he here? Why was he ignored all through "Eragon" but now his story is important? Roran leads his people, Moses-like, out of Carvahall to the South to the safety of the Vardan. I have loads of insults for the stupidity of the townfolk, leaving their village at the whim of one man, to the clichéd motivational speech Roran gives, to yet another damsel-in-distress (women in these novels get kidnapped far too easily in these types of novels), to another horrible, awkward romance, to the complete misunderstanding of how the world works, but I really don’t care enough about this part to dredge them up. Insert your own witticisms here.
By the way, has anyone noticed that there is little explanation to why the Empire is bad? Okay, so we have the Raz’ac killing the folks of Carvahall, but that is only because of Eragon/Roran, and only because the dragon egg was stolen from Galbatorix. Last time I checked, thieves were punishable by law. If someone had stolen something from Eragon, he darn well would have gotten a horse and rode off to beat that thief's @ss...why wouldn't the government do something similar? If given the mind, one could reason that the Vardan are the enemies, for stealing, for being terrorists, and for being traitors to the government (and with how corrupt the Council are, an odd bit of realism in this stereotypical fantasy, it’s not a hard thought to wrap your head around). If you are going to make bad guys, you show them being bad guys. You show Galbatorix and Morzan killing people, oppressing people, stealing for no reason, burning down rows of pretty blue flowers, etc., not just tell the audience they are bad and expect us to root for Eragon and the Vardan.
Now we get to the fun part: the writing style. Oh, God Almighty, the writing style. Paolini is very aware he’s trying to write an epic, because it sounds just like an epic should. Well, a quick glance shows it sounding like an epic should. If you read with any modicum of attention, you'll see that it reads like the worst LOTR fanfiction on the internet. Too much time is spent on needless descriptions (Oh, yes, let’s describe each of the Dwarves gods and goddesses!), padded wording, and clichéd phrases. Some of the worst passages I’ve found include:
“Slippers flashing beneath her dress, like mice darting from a hole.” WORST. DESCRIPTION. EVER. Was this really the best way to describe...what is Paolini describing???
“Eragon surreptitiously watched the Elf, curious to what he looked like without his clothes.” Uh, and why is Eragon hitting on Arya and pouting when he fails disastrously?
“Eragon savored the epics as he might a well-cooked meal.” Who said you couldn’t eat what you read?
“Anxiety ran through his voice like a taut bow string.” Run, Anxiety, run! Get away from the bad simile!
“gyrating walls of ebony water” No, I would say “purple”, as in “purple prose”.
And then, of course, as I’ve briefly touched on earlier, Paolini breaks some of the author’s Golden Rules. “Show, don’t tell”. “Good prose should be invisible”. “Don’t lose the pacing by trying to describe your setting”. “The word ‘said’ is your best friend in dialogue.” And so on.
And now, I get into the audiobook. Most of the time, I don’t bother to comment, as the narrators do a good job at narrating. But I absolutely hated one thing about this narrator: his dragon voices. Most of the other characters were okay, even if they were indistinguishable from each other (but oh well, audiobook narrators come in different flavors), but the absolute low point was the dragons. For the dragons, the narrator growled in a low, deep, raspy voice. This wasn’t bad for a short sentence here and there, but for long, long, long passages (which Paolini writes a lot of), it was so bad, I was very close to skipping over the section, just to stop listening to the horrible voice.
If you are interested in reading a cross-over fan fiction of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, I recommend you go to fan-fiction.net. If you want to read horrible characters, unending descriptions, bad romance, and a thin as plastic wrap plot stretched over 71 chapters that reads like Star Wars with characters and settings from Lord of the Rings, read "Eldest". If you didn’t like "Eragon", "Eldest" will only make you madder.
tobingold's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This is still just Star Wars when will it end
rosewitch44's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
powellconner's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
mcampbell8558's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
matsfct's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
elisedasnarechick's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
jessitaylor012's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
breezy610's review against another edition
4.0
It was really good. It was slow to start but then it got really good. Can't wait to read the next one.
tillwyatt's review against another edition
4.0
I’m loving this series. Paolini is one of the best young writers of our time.
Almost a full 5 stars. The ending felt rushed, and the story ark resembled the first book quite closely.
Looking forward to number 3.
Almost a full 5 stars. The ending felt rushed, and the story ark resembled the first book quite closely.
Looking forward to number 3.