Brisingr (Inheritance, #3)

by Christopher Paolini, Gerard Doyle (Narrator)

book data

11,285 ratings, 3.97 average rating, 2,767 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		37%
4		33%
3		20%
2		6%
1		1%

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published

September 20th 2008 by Listening Library (Audio)

binding

Audio CD

characters

Eragon, Saphira

isbn

0739368044 (isbn13: 9780739368046)

description

OATHS SWORN . . . loyalties tested . . . forces collide.

Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and ...more

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10/05/08

Alena rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: someone needing kindling to start a fire

For the love of all that is good and decent in the world, MAKE THE EXPOSITION STOP!!!

I didn't think it was possible for this series to get worse after Eldest. I was wrong. This book is nearly 800 pages of pointless adjectives, with perhaps six pages' worth of plot... most of which is just review (described in *excruciating* detail) from the previous books.

Don't waste your time or money... unless you really need a cure for insomnia.

Like this review? yes (24 people liked it)

13 comments

02/08/08

Lauren rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in September, 2008

recommends it for: fantasy lovers, Star Wars fans, Lord of the Rings fans, Tamora Pierce fans

So, I was a little disappointed with this third installment of Paolini's Inheritance "Cycle" now - since he changed the game and made this a 4 book series instead of 3, as it was originally intended.

The story was good and what I have come to expect from this series. But honestly, it did not have to be 748 pages long. I understand the author's desire to flesh out his characters, but the way that he kept going back and forth between the different characters I found annoying. ...more

Like this review? yes (19 people liked it)

14 comments

03/16/08

Augury Of actuality marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: to-read

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Like this review? yes (13 people liked it)

11 comments

03/14/08

Jedidiah rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

I love this book. I wish it was longer. Amazing!

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10/13/08

Amelia rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: are-you-kidding-me---shite, fantasy

Read in October, 2008

What a steaming pile this was! Paolini appears to be terrified as to what he will do next, because he is clearly dragging the "Inheritance Cycle" out just as far as he can! Look, I realize that it must be terrifying to peak at 17...I wouldn't know, I'm still waiting for mine...but, accept it and move on kid!

This book, on it's own (or if you didn't like the first two) is pretty much unreadably annoying. It was long, drawn out, rubbish full of excessive sentimentality and ...more What a steaming pile this was! Paolini appears to be terrified as to what he will do next, because he is clearly dragging the "Inheritance Cycle" out just as far as he can! Look, I realize that it must be terrifying to peak at 17...I wouldn't know, I'm still waiting for mine...but, accept it and move on kid!

This book, on it's own (or if you didn't like the first two) is pretty much unreadably annoying. It was long, drawn out, rubbish full of excessive sentimentality and words he dragged screaming from his thesaurus .

I made the further mistake of flipping the page after I'd finished only to find a little directory of the Elvish, Dwarvish, Urgulish and whatever-else-ish words he'd made up and how to pronounce them. Like I fucking care how to pronounce them! I'm not going to be using them verbally!! Hello, Chris, they're not real!

Another flip of the page and, GOOD GOD! It's a letter to his "fans". This "letter" was every bit what I had come to expect from his "newsletter". Yes, I confess, I have been receiving it for nearly two years now. I have learned to delete without reading however. After reading Eragon and most of Eldest I signed up for it to find out when Brisingr was coming out. I soon became bored and disgusted with his self congratulatory blathering tinged with delusions of grandeur. Face it Paolini, you got lucky with the first book, the second wasn't bad (says me, plenty of folks don't agree), the movie was shit and the video game you were so excited about was even more shit! Brisingr...pfft!

Lastly, what the hell is the deal with the talking in Elvish? Do you suppose Tolkien walked around talking in his made up languages? I very much doubt it, he would have been laughed out of Oxfordshire! I get you're trying to cultivate this convention attending fan base, but dude, you're trying way too hard! Bit of advice, you're going to have a hard time keeping a girlfriend that isn't just interested in your money if you inundate her with bad romantic poetry written in Elvish...

All things considered, I was totally disappointed.(less)

Like this review? yes (13 people liked it)

21 comments

05/27/08

Mindy rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction, ya

Read in October, 2008

I'm sure I'll get hate comments for this rating. But I just was bogged down by Paolini's formal and dry descriptive text. Maybe I'm just too far removed from the other books these years later. I really liked the first two, I just couldn't get into this one. I feel like the story just sort of meanders around.

(SPOILER ALTER) The wedding scene was particularly terrible. It was so long and drawn out. I don't like to go to long drawn out weddings in real life. Reading one was tha...more

Like this review? yes (9 people liked it)

14 comments

09/21/08

Bibiana rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in September, 2008

I just completed reading Brisingr, and I must say that I was very impressed with the plot!

To compress all of my thoughts and the plot in to only one word, this has to be it - Unpredictable.

Certain events that happened in the book really took me by surprise and I have to applaud Christopher Paolini to even think about such a complex plot. I could hardly guess what might happen in the next few pages, and the only way for me to find out was to keep my head buried deep within...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

10 comments

04/25/08

Suelynn rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in January, 2009

The author finally realized that he made too many plot lines in his last book and that there was no way he could wrap it up in one book and so he's writing at least one more after this. I'm going to bet it turns into a 5 book series at least. The next book already sounds like it's going to be huge, something like 900 pages. I can't remember, but I know it was a lot.

This author, Christopher Paolini, first caught my attention with his book cover. I walked past this book I can't tell y...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

1 comment

07/21/08

Jacob marked it as to-read (review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: do-not-own, to-read, wish-list

Pre-Review, 21 July 2008: Can't believe I'd adding this. Really, Brisingrrrrrr only gets a spot on my Wish List out of malice and spite: because I'm expecting it to be so bad, so awful, that (like Eldest before it) I'll have to take a red pen to the book while reading and edit it as I go--and since libraries frown on rude comments in the margins, I'll have to buy my own copy. But why read it at all? Morbid curiosity. It's a literary train wreck and I can't look away.

I could be ...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

11 comments

09/26/08

Laura rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: couldn-t-finish

Read in October, 2008

I give up. I've spent two weeks trying to get through this 700-page snoozefest and I'm still completely uninterested in what happens next. I can muster more enthusiasm for the third season of 'Rock of Love.'

To be fair, I've never been ecstatic about the Inheritance trilogy (although I think there's going to be one more book because 700 pages just wasn't long enough). Eragon was a pleasant enough, if unoriginal, story, made more impressive because of Paolini's young age. (Heck, whe...more

Like this review? yes (6 people liked it)

5 comments

09/30/08

Mathew rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

I must say, I was kind of horrified when my parents gave me this to read. However, it is an improvement on the previous atrocities, even if it does have a hundred flaws.

Paolini's desire to describe every inane detail is the worst part. It made me want to put the back down every few pages. Also, he seemed to describe the same two things over and over again: flying and fighting. Which may have been all right, except he described one man killing people with a hammer almost the same way ...more

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10/30/08

Rebecca rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: fantasy, young_adult

Read in November, 2008

Is it just me, or is this series on a serious downward spiral? Eragon was uninventive but entertaining; Eldest was a bit of slog, but pulled through in the end; Brisingr, however, just left me exhuasted and annoyed. At least half of this novel could have be edited out, and as with the previous two books, Paolini seems more interested in showing off his vocabulary (both English and invented) and in delivering lengthy, detailed battle scenes than in telling a compelling story. Oh, and....SPOILER ...more

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01/21/09

Callie rated it:

(review of isbn 0552552127)

bookshelves: tried-to-read

Read in November, 2008

I try to finish a book no matter what, but this book will be an exception. I'm 100 pages in...and nothing has happened! This book suffered from over discription about things that are unimportant to the plot or to the reader and slowed the story telling to an almost non-existent plot line. The author obviously has a love of armor and weaponry and his descriptions of these things go on for paragraphs in such an self indulgent way that he seems to be purposefully leaving the reader! A dissapoin...more

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09/25/08

Erin rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in October, 2008

It's generally a very good story. Problems arise, however, when the fact that very little of it is original becomes distracting, the excessive wordiness and verbosity of the author (in both character voice and description) becomes distracting, and the number of random side adventures and random side characters become. . . yes, distracting.

I am anxious to see how the story ends, I just hate it when I can't stop thinking about the author's prose and plot choices while I'm reading a boo...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

2 comments

03/05/09

Ceridwen rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: abandoned, dragons, fantasy, my-eyes--the-goggles-do-nothing, young-adult

Read in March, 2009

recommends it for: your younger brother

So, the library is demanding that I return this tome. I think I may be done reading. If I hadn't lost my real book, I never would have gotten 200 pages in. I only managed that reading every third page.

I'm sad because Eragon is my favorite book to love to hate. It's got so many things wrong with it: horrible sense of place, ridiculous "wisdom", bad magic, racial and gender assumptions that range from badly considered to offensive. But the book had a certain greasy charm. It'...more So, the library is demanding that I return this tome. I think I may be done reading. If I hadn't lost my real book, I never would have gotten 200 pages in. I only managed that reading every third page.

I'm sad because Eragon is my favorite book to love to hate. It's got so many things wrong with it: horrible sense of place, ridiculous "wisdom", bad magic, racial and gender assumptions that range from badly considered to offensive. But the book had a certain greasy charm. It's like your younger brother stole all your best fantasy fiction, and instead of learning how to masturbate most effectively like most 15 year olds, wrote this energetic, stupid, fun story. And when I say it's like that, what I mean is that's exactly what happened.

From the back flap: "Christopher Paolini...graduated from high school at fifteen after being homeschooled all his life." Really, Chris? Oh save me Jebus, there are too many jokes. I can't even decide. Anyway, enough ad hominem attacks. Let's move on to attacking his work.

At 17, Paolini writes the silly, stupid, but charmingly sincere Eragon. Now, in his third book, Paolini is maturing as a writer, and it's not a pretty sight. The energy of Eragon has been replaced by endless, leaden descriptions of landscape. Paolini clearly wants his main characters to change and grow through the book, but lacks both the skill and self-awareness to do this. What's left is a bunch of whingeing over how bad responsibility sucks and how mean authority figures are. And how, Chris. What it is, my brother.

In one of the essays in How to Travel with a Salmon, Umberto Eco proposes a novel way to identity pornography. The identification of pornography is one of those legally relevant needs, and usually comes down to "I know it when I see it." Eco dismisses the usual "intention" arguments, pointing out instead that most pornography is light on plot. Pornography then shows movement or travel from one place or another wholly in real time. The scene opens, the gardener drives to the rich woman's house, he rings the doorbell: all of this occurs without a cut. The real time movement both pads the running time and allows for a suitable refractory period. More than money shots and girls gone wild, real-time movement constitutes the true hallmark of pornography.

It is in this way that Brisingr is pornographic. I believe it to be the first book to be written almost entirely in real time. When Eragon runs through the desert for two days, it takes two days of thirst and deprivation for the reader to get through it. No doubt when I defend my thesis on post-modernism and the fractured narrative at Homeschool University, my readers will lob questions about Brisingr at me, pointing out how deeply experimental a traditional narrative can be.
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13 comments

10/27/08

Zachhg rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Zach Highley-Gergel
Mrs. Ebarvia
World Literature Honors
10-21-08
Online Book Review Brisingr
Fire; is the definition of the title of the novel in the ancient language. Brisingr is the title and was written by Christopher Paolini. He has written Eragon(the first book of the Inheritance cycle), Eldest(the second), and Brisingr(the third). The protagonist is Eragon who and with his dragon Saphira. The ant...more Zach Highley-Gergel
Mrs. Ebarvia
World Literature Honors
10-21-08
Online Book Review Brisingr
Fire; is the definition of the title of the novel in the ancient language. Brisingr is the title and was written by Christopher Paolini. He has written Eragon(the first book of the Inheritance cycle), Eldest(the second), and Brisingr(the third). The protagonist is Eragon who and with his dragon Saphira. The antagonist of the novel is the forces of Galbatorix and Galbatorix himself. Eragon’s goal with the help of the Varden, which is the rebel forces against Galbatorix, is to free Alagaesia from his tyranny. Alagaesia is the world which Eragon lives in.
The novel had many interesting things; one of the things being the ancient language. The ancient language is a language that can be used as a regular talk or a way to summon magic. Also the dragons talk through their minds like many magicians can. Eragon is trying to kill Galbatorix, but before he can get to him he needs to become a skilled magician and fighter. He learns how to be this through Oromis and Glaedr. Oromis is a secret rider hidden from Galbatorix, and Glaedr is his dragon. The novel is exiting and vivid.
The novel was good other than one boring bit. When Eragon is trying to unite the remaining people of Alaesia who aren’t under Galbatorix’s control he goes to the dwarves to try and speed up an election. This is an election between the dwarves’ leaders. It is quite boring because it is talking about politics and many dwarfish things that are not explained. Also there is quite a bit of un-needed talking.
Despite its little weakness, the novel is an enjoyable piece to read. Brisingr is filled with action around every corner. It also contains some humor, and the ancient language is quite interesting to understand. There are also many hidden surprises with the book like: who Eragon’s father and brother is, and what happens at his cousins wedding. If you like an exciting, fast paced, and magical story you will like Brisingr.

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10/02/08

Sam rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I've kept up with the Inheritance "cycle" (now that the author has decided a trilogy isn't cutting it) out of a desire to see a story I've invested in to its conclusion. I hesitate to call it an obligatory read on my part, but it's more because I'm invested in the story now than I am eager to read more by Paolini. His writing has struck me as amateur, if refreshing for its brevity at first, since the beginning.

To keep this as spoiler-free as I can, my biggest issue with Brisi...more I've kept up with the Inheritance "cycle" (now that the author has decided a trilogy isn't cutting it) out of a desire to see a story I've invested in to its conclusion. I hesitate to call it an obligatory read on my part, but it's more because I'm invested in the story now than I am eager to read more by Paolini. His writing has struck me as amateur, if refreshing for its brevity at first, since the beginning.

To keep this as spoiler-free as I can, my biggest issue with Brisingr--and with the entire series, truthfully--is what I can only call the easiness factor. The conflicts and trials of the story often end up more or less resolved in the same chapter in which they are brought up. And the few extended tribulations of Eragon or the other characters, once they are finally put to bed, are handled in a disturbingly deus ex machina fashion. At the end of nearly every chapter I was struck with this thought: "He really could have saved himself the trouble of writing twenty pages and just not had this happen in the first place."

Okay, I can't really do this without an example, so there are spoilers in this paragraph. In one sequence, Roran, Eragon's cousin, is sent on a raid on an enemy unit under a captain he dislikes. At first the man is competent, according to the narrative, but (it seems to me) since the author is invested in making the man difficult to like, he ends up being shown as massively incompetent. It just wouldn't do if the man were good at his job but a jerk, would it? That would make Roran look stupid. Thanks to the captain's incompetence, the company ends up in a dire situation and only Roran's bravery and, yes, insubordination win the day. Roran is therefore punished for insubordination by being lashed in front of the army. He is told beforehand by Nasuada that he cannot seek a mage to heal his wounds, because he must suffer them naturally in order to learn a lesson. This is all well and good--he was a hero, but he still did something that required punishment. Only it doesn't end there. Nasuada decides that she needs Roran (meta translation: Roran is supposed to be a hero in the story and has to be in the thick of action to continue to be important) and has put him at the head of a new company of men. Therefore she brings in magic users to heal his wounds so he can be in fighting shape. Meanwhile, the man he disobeyed in the first place--to the point that a lashing was deemed necessary for not obeying him--has been axed from his position. So at the end? Roran is lashed, yes, but suffers no lasting damage and is promoted, while the man he disobeyed is punished. Why did we go through this? What was the point? By the end, it felt like I was having Roran's "hardship" thrust upon me because it seemed like he should have some, only for it to be immediately removed because it was inconvenient to the ongoing story. It was artificial.

Beyond these problems, the story is as engaging as it was in the first two books, if a little cliché. My position on the story has not changed, and I will likely pick up the fourth, and supposedly final, book when it is released. Ultimately, Paolini has a good overall framework for an intriguing fantasy story, but his own writing and the lack of heart in the details leaves it flat.(less)

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03/24/08

Ink Mage rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

bookshelves: draconic, read-in-2008

Read in September, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Christopher Paolini's writing seemed (to me) to have somehow changed in a way that made it harder for me to fall into than Eragon and Eldest were.
As a whole I liked the story, but there wasn't the excitement of I-have-to-see-what-happens-next like before. Especially when Eragon is in Tronjheim I was just wishing that he would freaking LEAVE already! That part seemed particularly drawn-out and boring to me.
A few other issues I had with it:
I found some characters *cough*Arya*coug...more

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11/09/08

Karin rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

poke me in the eye! This book is terrible! The first one was forgiven for it's rambling irrelevancies due to it's imaginative world and logical magic. This one has no excuses. First off, it's about as entertaining as watching a clock's hour hand tick. Second, approximately two things happen in the entire book that are even important! Each event can go beyond being summed up in a chapter or two. This was riddled with rambling text, inconsistencies, and fluff. A wonderful example of it's dull dron...more

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12/24/08

Aaron rated it:

(review of isbn 0375826726)

Read in October, 2008

Finally, this series has given me a novel that I have enjoyed every part of. I consider it the darkest of the three novels, as Eragon realizes what a dire situation he has placed himself in, and the slim chance that he might succeed in his mission to free the citizens from the tyrannical rule of King Galbatorix. This book finally brings its characters and its plot back down to Earth, and although the novel still thrives off fantasy, and now possesses a sense of reality to it.
T...more

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