Eragon

Written by Christopher Paolini and, since its publication, made into a motion picture from Twentieth Century Fox, Eragon is the first in the Inheritance series: an original series of fantasy tales which are a tad Tolkien-esque, but we’ll overlook that. Admittedly merely an introductory book and rather a slow and uneventful one at that, I still managed to power my way through the read and enjoyed quite nicely.

The land of Alagaesia was once a place of peace and magic until the legendary Dragon Riders; keepers of the peace were, wiped out by the evil king Galbatorix. Now it is a land of darkness and oppression with Galbatorix increasingly spreading his Empire. But a seed of change and hope is planted when a poor farm boy named Eragon discovers a polished blue stone in the woods. Believing to be a lucky plunder, Eragon is shocked when the stone turns out to be a dragon’s egg that has hatched for only him. Overnight Eragon is plunged into a new world of legend, magic, and danger as he and the fledgling dragon are now of keen interest to the King. With the wisdom and guidance of an old storyteller, Eragon soon finds himself on a path to take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders and help the rebellious Vaden bring peace once more to Alagaesia.

To give dues where they are deserved, Eragon is a fine read as it encompasses all the solid and basic elements of a good fantasy adventure book. We have a nice combination of mythical creatures, some of them already heard of such as elves and dwarves, and others that are completely original such as Shades and Urgals. The book had a good many healthy doses of action as well as drama, friendship, and suspense.
My only major beef with this book is that it’s written in a somewhat flimsy and un-enticing way. Whilst being a good story balanced between fantasy and political and social unrest, Paolini’s style of writing is unstructured and a bit like that of a fledgling. There are no characters that are established strongly enough for you to root for, not even the hero, and this as a result makes the really dramatic scenes such as essential characters’ death and stuff not as dramatic as they should be. For quite a bit of the book the language of the characters is confusing as some speak with a more medieval tone which is right and fitting for the setting, but then at times it turns and sounds more modern and unfitting, so for quite a part of the book you’re sort of wondering what period we are and the whole thing just seems rather unfounded.
I found all this lack of conviction, essentially, rather a blow because the basic story is one that centres around a lot of learning and travelling, the entire book is a lead-up to an epic confrontation as most fantasy stories are, and because you couldn’t really love any of the characters and the more dramatic parts did not feel so, it really did make the book feel like it was about nothing, thus rather boring and long-winded when you consider it’s almost 500 pages of nothing. It was a bit of a blow to say the least, but towards the very end it does become a bit more founded and a bit more solid and things do begin heating up in lead-up to the next book so that’s a plus.
Filled with action, magic, fantasy, mythical creatures, friendship, and war, Eragon was a fine fantasy novel for the young adult, not a major work of literary achievement, but it’s easy enough to read and if you work at it, there is some stuff to enjoy.