What readers think of Eragon, plus links to write your own review.

This is an average book and you can tell its written by a first-time writer. This book is for novice or young readers but not for long-time fantasy readers.

For starters, you can easily pick out the ideas and plot points that are very similar to other fantasy novels. (Some are frighteningly close, I don't know how the author got away with some of his writing). These just turn an experienced writer off. The other problem the book has is the uninteresting story. After reading the book, you feel like there should have been more. There is no excitement leading up to the final battle. The only upside is the author does scatter some original ideas, places and characters.

I didn't mind the unoriginality (if there is such a word) of the story, because in general, most books lack originality these days, yet they're still enjoyable. The story was intriguing and the world was a colorful one. The writing was admittedly a little more than I could take sometimes--a blatant attempt to imitate the verbose writing styles of the type-authors of today's fantasy novels--but my real issue was the dialogue and characters. I never really fell in love with any of them. Every character seemed a little too similar to some shell of a character with unlikely words falling from his mouth. Eragon was by far the best of them, probably because he spoke the least, but I was definitely disappointed by the lack of soul in them. I hesitate to read the sequel for fear of another let-down, but I do suspect that Mr. Paolini has made improvements over his starter.

If I could make a recommendation to the author, it would be to unpublish his book (were it possible) and edit it with his present knowledge. It had the feel of a second-time rewrite rather than a fleshed-out novel. I suspect he could have done a more thorough job, perhaps this time not driven by the excitement of looming publication.

It's funny. The people who rate this book a 1 or 2, saying it is the most horrid thing they have ever read, must really look back on their own posts; I think they would take that opinion back. I think it was a good book. The writing was good, the imagery was good, and the characters were good. Yes, he did somewhat copy Star Wars verbatim, but I give him credit for getting off his ass and actually doing something, instead of criticizing other peoples works.

Lighten up.

I made it through the whole book and found it interesting. I think it's overrated, though. I won't analyze every little resemblance, but still...it doesn't quite fit the description of what I'd call a masterpiece.



Two words---character development. I felt no emotion when the characters died or were injured or anything like that. Why should I? They didn't seem very realistic.



And, being the first book and a trilogy, the plot should unwind at a slower pace. The reader should be given time to understand the characters, the world, and other aspects. It held my interest, and is ten times better than Eldest, which is absolutely horrible, but isn't the greatest. In fact, I probably never would have read it if my grandma hadn't sent it to me for my birthday.



Why couldn't Arya be an ally, instead of mere infatuation? What does Eragon look like? Why is Saphira oh-so-wise if she hasn't been in existence that long? And could Paolini be anymore obvious in his writing?

Eragon was okay, IMO. It wasn't great, or particularly original, but it was okay. I'm baffled that so many people think it was stolen from LoTR, but hardly anyone has mentioned Star Wars plagarism! The whole time I was reading Eragon, I was drawing plot/character similarities to Star Wars. Eragon is Luke Skywalker, the cocky, talented, young orphan. Brom is Obi-wan, the wise sage who teaches the main character and presents him with his first sword. Saphira's egg is equivalent to R2D2 since they both hold the means for destroying the evil emperor. Galbatorix is Emperor Palpatine. Eragon's Uncle is Uncle Owen. I could go on and on. There are other very spoiler ridden character parallels that I could draw, so I better end at that. No, I don't think this book is particularly well-written, it's actually pretty long-winded with unnecessary scenes and dialog. Still, it entertained me a little. The plot was very predictable, but I'm rating this a 3 because Eragon kept me somewhat entertained. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was okay.

yeah, not be the conspiracy theory nut or anything but some of these review's look a bit oversimplified. - SUSPICIOUS?

best book i have read! (Really) -bob
This book totally rocks! I can't wait for the next ones to come out! -randomme

Could Paolini have people writing reviews to promote his book? Did the Mafia kill jfk?

Well, I must admit that I was relieved to find other people on this board who were not overly impressed by this book. I didn't like it. (I'll say it simply.) Although the story was fairly fast-paced and pretty easy reading, I agree with the people who stated that most of Paolini's material was not original. When I read the book, I could easily pick out ideas that came from many different authors, including material from Lord of the Rings, (forget the nine companions, okay? There's more to LOTR than that!) Harry Potter, and Dragonriders of Pern. As a starting work of fiction, Eragon is okay. Hopefully as Paolini continues writing he will be able to come up with his own ideas and build off of them, instead of using other people's ideas. I would recommend this book for people interested in fantasy (but without the guts to delve into authors like Tolkein.) If you want original fantasy, this book will surely disappoint.

Eragon was not as original as it could be even though nowadays it is nearly impossible to have a completely original book, and the beginning of the book was boring I have to say, but it got better the farther it got into the book. But all in all, it is a pretty good book ^.^