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

So bad

if u think of it

worst book i ever read

too chilidish

demonstration of a conversation:

"i am tired" he complained.
"it's okay" she consoled.
"please hurry" she said urgently.

paolini leaves nothing to the imagination. his style is obviously a 15 dream of creating his own little world. if you've watched star wars or read tolkien, the similarities are blatant. if you know the gist of D and D, then you will definitely see some similarities there. this book made me want to retch. so much work put in, and nothing came of it.

Well this book had many problems that I'm sorry to say, outweighed and completely swamped any good within its pages. I felt that many of the elements were borrowed from numerous other texts. This made me feel like I had already read this book because there was nothing new at all that I could say, "Wow, that's cool!" The magic was extremely simple and boring, which is not how magic should be and the villains were not "sufficiently evil" enough to provide a scare for the reader. Also, many of the names bothered me, especially the name "Helen." Amid a world with names like "Brom" and "Eragon", the choice of the name "Helen" was a poor one that I resented very much.
I am 14 years old and I can tell you honestly that Eragon only managed to get published because the author was young. Comparing this book to "Lord of the Rings" or "Inkheart" is a grave insult to Tolkien and Funke. Avoid this book at all costs.

Christopher Paolini copied everything... this book is good, but its just a collection of different ideas from other books, films, etc.

Even things from computer games - such as Shades from Warcraft 3, etc.
Pretty Dodgey, i dont know why everyone gave it a 5.

his parents, instead of being greedy and selling the book now and getting money now. Could have waited for Christopher Paolini to mature up a bit more. Anyone who has read REAL fantasy books would know that this book is bad.

Mnay people on this site love Eragon, but they don't even say why they do. Can anyone explain why Paolini has used so many similar words in his book?

Hi

Well, first things first. No one seems to realize that different people think differently. If you go through the review lines, you'll see that almost all of them are either '1' or '5'. There is no intermidiate stage.
I want to point out the reason for this. The people who've read fantasy before by 'established' authors, will certainly hate Eragon. Hence the reason for the 1 star comments.
The people who want to start on the fantasy branch, and started with Eragon, will obviously love it.

As for me, I think the book is a good first attempt. I can imagine all the work Paolini must gone through while writing it.
But apart from that, i did not enjoy the book. I would have to agree with others in that there are certain plot elements which are too similar to other books to suit me. I also want to point out that the speech style of the characters is very inconsistent. Sometimes they sound like street crones and then they sound like noble kings.

Having said that, I want to commend Paolini. Afterall, writers keep getting better. I hope that Eldest will prove my point.

Thanks for reading.
Amar Sarkar, age 15

Matthew, I totally agree! Have you ever noticed how the Eragon plot is too similar to Star Wars? Example: Eragon's uncle being burned along with his farmhouse (same thing happened to Luke), and Brom teaching Eragon magic, then dies (Obi Wan teaches Luke the force, then dies). Not to mention that Christopher Paolini's father is trying to sell video game "RPG" rights to a company (RPG games are like monster-battling games where your character levels up and gains experience). I think the game will be just as bad as the book (By which I mean, HORRIBLE!!!!!).

I have to say that one thing amazes me about Christopher Paolini. It's not that he wrote a book at fifteen, nor that he "created" his own fantasy world (I say "created" but in fact I mean something like "stole all the great elements of other books and slapped it together into his own hapless book), nor is it the fact that he recieved a rave review in Publishers Weekly, but the fact that he is being so arrogant at the fact that he wrote this "masterpiece." I commend him for being published at such an early age (cough *by his parents* cough). Altogether, there is a thick line of arrogance running through the books turgid narrative, the characters are as flimsy and one-dimensional as an extra-thin piece of cardboard (the main character has the emotional range of a teaspoon), and the plot, well, to be honest, there really isn't one.