'Eragon' and 'Eldest' by Christopher Paolini, 2003 and 2005
See here and here for plot outlines and links to reviews.
I really wanted to like these books. The first was written by a guy in his teens and made into a movie... surely it can't be that bad. Well, they certainly aren't great. The writing style isn't as noticeably pretentious as I expected; there are some passages that have been written thesaurus in hand however. A lot of the dialogue is worse than Star Wars and does not sound real at all.
The story, characters, events all feel very familiar. In fact it borrows heavily from Star Wars and LOTR and falls into all the cliches of "epic fantasy". Its even going to be a trilogy - the biggest cliche of all! To be fair I found it compelling reading at times and I often wanted to find out what would happen next, even though I had a pretty good idea. The idea of using magic instead of shaing I found original (and rather sensible) but that was the one original idea. As usual the books are filled with made up names for people and places.... apart from Angela, whose name sticks out like a sore thumb!
I suppose I will read the final installment at some point but I won't be too disappointed if I forget.
If you like your epic-fantasy cliched and unoriginal then you may enjoy this. Otherwise, see the movie - it will be over quicker.
I really wanted to like these books. The first was written by a guy in his teens and made into a movie... surely it can't be that bad. Well, they certainly aren't great. The writing style isn't as noticeably pretentious as I expected; there are some passages that have been written thesaurus in hand however. A lot of the dialogue is worse than Star Wars and does not sound real at all.
The story, characters, events all feel very familiar. In fact it borrows heavily from Star Wars and LOTR and falls into all the cliches of "epic fantasy". Its even going to be a trilogy - the biggest cliche of all! To be fair I found it compelling reading at times and I often wanted to find out what would happen next, even though I had a pretty good idea. The idea of using magic instead of shaing I found original (and rather sensible) but that was the one original idea. As usual the books are filled with made up names for people and places.... apart from Angela, whose name sticks out like a sore thumb!
I suppose I will read the final installment at some point but I won't be too disappointed if I forget.
If you like your epic-fantasy cliched and unoriginal then you may enjoy this. Otherwise, see the movie - it will be over quicker.
Labels: christopher paolini, fantasy, movie
posted by Social Work Dad at 9:02 AM
3 comments
