Eragon

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Eragon was a really good fantasy read. Not the best epic series ever, but considering the author started writing this at 15 years old and was a New York Times Bestseller by 19, you have to give him some respect.

The first 30 pages were tough to get through for a staunch fantasy reader (just look at my cloud of things read!). Things seemed repeated from other fantasy series. For example: the brutal, northern mountain range near Eragon's hometown is named "The Spine," hmm, reminiscent of "The Spine of the World" in the Forgotten Realms? Yep. And the biggest city near to Eragon's hometown is named "Carvahall," while I can't put my finger on it, I feel like I've seen this elsewhere. Anyways, it had very generic first pages that were not very gripping.

I can't exactly put my finger on a certain point in the story but it's like the book is a ship launched from a beach: the beginning is not smooth at all; but once you get past the crashing waves and into the deep blue sea of the story, it just sucks you in. I can't wait to dive into the next one! Thanks Paolini for a great read!

Oh, and the other thing that kind of bugged me was a moment when Eragon went out onto the plains and a storm was brewing overhead. He looked up into the thunderheads and imagined the clouds to be the vaulted ceiling of a majestic Cathedral, with pillars, and flowing arches. He grew up in a little po-dunk town at the rim of civilization and has never seen a mid-sized town, let alone some kind of Cathedral. The only other way he would have heard about it would be from some story-teller or Bard, and when do Story-teller's relate the "tale of the grand Cathedral?" I digress and found this artistic writing device to be unbelievable, though it did make a nice mental picture.

Ok, a slow get-go and one sentence that I found to be not believable is no grounds to put down this book. It was a great read, with minute flaws. Hence, four out of five stars.

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