Books I Loathed discussion
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Eragon
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Oh, boy. If you think Eragon was bad, you're lucky you didn't try to take on Eldest. I actually made it all the way through Eragon, and fooled myself into believing that Eldest would be better... If you can imagine it, Eldest is definitely much worse a read than Eragon!
uh yea.....i made it all the way through Eragon, got Eldest for Christmas last year and maybe read 6 chapters and said buh bye.
Among my students (particularly the MS boys), it's heresy not to be eagerly awaiting the Oct. 28, 2008 release of the third book. I commit heresy on a daily basis.Is it bad? No. It's pastiche. It's mediocre pastiche, in fact. The thing is, Paolini was a teenage when he wrote it, and that - and only that - was why it got published (IMVHO, of course). An adult writing this would have been told that it was obvious where the influences and SAT words had been hammered into a thin plot, and "no thanks".
Wyou self-publish, and make lots of noise about the youth of the author, you build interest. And when the majority of your eager readers are too young to have read the originals...
I guess my huge problem with Paolini is I spent a lot of time on fanfiction boards when I was younger, and I know a handful of writers younger than he was that could write a hell of a lot better than he'll ever be able to. I really wish age had nothing to do with getting published--if you're 16 and your novel is horrible, that should mean as much as if you're 86 and your novel is horrible. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be how it works.
I enjoy the Harry Potter books. Mainly because, in contrast to Eragon, they were written by an author with an ounce of talent and two brain cells to rub together.
In general, Eragon is pretty much typical epic fantasy fare.It should be noted that epic fantasy in particular gets more formulaic than most genres, and struggles with a fairly solid plot framework dictated by the large-scale good vs. evil conflict.
At any rate, I found the world of Eragon to be a mix of the fresh and the trite, in about equal doses. The characters lived, the scenery was better painted than in many novels, and while the narrative wandered a bit, it was engaging and drew me through the book at a good clip.
And that's all that really matters.
For all you Eragon-haters, I feel no discussion of this book would be complete without a like to the Eragon sporkings page: http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/As a bonus, it also contains Eldest Sporkings.
"Epic fantasy... gets more formulaic" is a true statement as far as it goes. But the whole truth is that it's difficult to write fantasy without stealing material from Tolkien (unless you're writing about knights, then you're stealing from Mallory or Troyes). Most authors start with a similar idea and then make it progressively worse (R. Jordan is the best example). What I like about //Eragon// is that by the end of the book he has sort of broken away from LOTR and for a 17 year old kid, I found that pretty impressive. Not that I'm advocating these are good books, they're merely meant to be entertaining. If you want really good Fantasy, check out George R R Martin's //Song of Fire and Ice// and hope that he sticks to his plan of keeping the series at 7 books.
If I had a sixteen year old son who wrote anything as bad as Eragon, I'd ground him for a couple of decades.Sadly enough, my children are younger than 16, so I have had to live through a certain amount of Eragon fandom. You haven't lived until you've heard the audiobook. The narrator decided to use a truly annoying growling sound for Saphira's voice. Nails on blackboard pretty much sums it up.
And then my son asked for the movie for Christmas.
My first thought was "What fresh Hell is this?"
Thank God this adaptation is the exception that proves the rule: it's better than the book. Which of course, isn't saying much. Still, any port in a storm.
hahaha. i feel your pain. i went to the movie instead of reading the book, becuase i figured, hey dragons are cool. even if the story sucks, at least there will be some awesome dragons and good special effects (i'm a designer, so i'm a sucker for good CG). not only was it a lame reheating of starwars by way of lord of the rings, but as it turns out, even the dragons sucked. probably the lamest movie i've seen in a loooong time, and i've seen a good portion of what's come out in the last 10 years.needless to say, i will not be reading the book. :)
Eragon was okay, Eldest, not so much. Brisingr and Inheritance, ugh.
The whole series was a disaster. I have the unfortunate need to finish every story I have ever read. After I got Eragon for a present I felt obligated to read it. And although I hated every second of it, I struggled trough the rest of the series. Before every new book I prayed for them to get better but instead they just got worse. So I know exactly how you feel. I'm still trying to erase the experience from my mind.
I agree that age shouldn't matter in who gets published and who doesn't.
ugh....the only reason this little twerp got published in the first place was because his parents owned a private publishing company.This book is the worst. It reads like really bad Star Wars fan fiction as told by rabid Lord of the Rings fanboys. Every tired cliche, every dull trope was seemingly thrown at this mess just to see what would stick.
I thought Terry Brooks' "Sword of Shannara" started out as a bad Tolkien rip-off, but after reading this...no, you go on and be subtle Shannara.
From the inappropriately named characters ("Katrina" and "Angela" smack in the middle of a supposedly original, alternate fantasy universe) to the ham-handed use of SAT words ("The sun rose the next morning with a glorious conflagration of pink and yellow"), from the irritatingly solemn "Pronunciation Guide" to the presumptuous acknowledgments, this book is not just stupid--it is astoundingly stupid.
That said, I wouldn't want a refund for the ten dollars I spent on this atrocious book. Ten bucks is a small price to put on the sheer joy my beloved dog has had from gnawing it to pieces.
What I would like refunded, however, is the hour and a half I wasted in reading the first 100 pages. I will curse Christopher Paolini on my deathbed for robbing me of precious minutes I could have spent doing more worthy things, things like--I don't know--voiding my bowels, digging through week-old garbage for my niece's lost retainer, or squeezing my pet's anal glands bare-handed.
Any of these would have been more valuable and more palatable uses of my time.