Book Review: Eragon by Christoper Paolini
I’ve never read the Inheritance Cycle. While at the library recent, I saw Eragon sitting prettily on a shelf and decided “Why not?” All the books I’d come to find weren’t available. Might as well give it a shot. I got about two pages into the prologue and almost returned it right then. Instead, I decided to roast the book, or as much of the book I made it through before it was due. What you’re about to read are my unfiltered, real-time thoughts of a book I know nothing about from a a genre I barely read. Don’t try to educate me on what fantasy races and tropes imply - if it’s not in the book and it’s important for the reader, that means the author did a bad job at giving me the information I need. I’m aware that the author was a teen when he wrote it.
For those who hold fond memories and nostalgic tenderness, I am deeply sorry for what you’re about to read.
Prologue
It'd be nice if I knew what a Shade was, not just what they look like.
Urgals resembled men... but are immediately called monsters in the next sentence. This is not helping me figure out what an Urgal is.
So the only noise cantering horses make are "faint smudges" and "a clink as something hard struck a loose stone"? Got it. Those are some pretty quiet horses or some epically sound-muffling ground.
The horses were cantering but never stopped before they wheeled and galloped away. Also the elf lady is looking at the pouch in her lap... in the dark, while they're still cantering.
The Shade climbs a piece of granite and can now magically see above the entire forest? That's either a short forest or a really fast climb. In the dark. Remember, all of this is happening at night in a fantasy land. I doubt they struggle with light pollution. Stars and moon are bright, yes, but they’re in a forest. You know, with trees overhead?
Oh. The piece of granite was 20 ft tall, and the Shade just jumps off and lands nimbly without a problem. Issues with “that’s not how jumping off tall things work” aside, that’s still a whole lot of very short trees. For reference, the average 2-story house is around twenty feet tall.
Now the Shade throws his sword into a tree like it's a ninja star, it sinks halfway in, and then he just pulls it out again? What was the point in that? Swords are carefully crafted and weight balanced for, you know, fighting. Throwing a sword is not going to look cool and its definitely not going to sink halfway through a tree trunk.
Red fire hits the elf, the Shade blasts 9 bolts of energy at her, and all she is is unconscious? That’s underwhelming and convenient. Dude just exploded an entire forest and can’t kill an elf at close range?
But I do like the dramatic touch of burning down the forest in order to trap the elves.
Discovery
And now we meet the title character, Eragon, who is apparently tracking deer at night without actually watching the tracks because he's that good of a tracker.
At 15, he's the only hunter who dares track game into the Spine, because...plot? If you're tracking deer for food, I don't think you're going to be terribly picky about where you're tracking them if you need food as badly as Eragon says he does.
Wait? So it's after dark and the deer are going to be bedding down for the night? Pretty sure that's not when deer go to sleep…
I'm going to assume he's using a longbow or some other type of standard bow. There is no way that he is holding arrows in one hand and notching another arrow with only one hand. He's also not keeping the bow drawn during this time. It takes a lot of weight to pull and hold a bow like that. You're not doing that while you're running and you're not holding it back any longer than you absolutely have to.
Palancar Valley
"She tossed back her auburn hair like a spray of molten copper." What is it with people writing girls tossing their hair? That's not something we do in day to day life.
The method of describing people and locations is clunky. Very direct and factual, with no emotional or sensory tie to help ground the description. "Here's three sentences of what it looks like" but not a single word on why I should care.
Eragon's uncle immediately knows the stone was found in the Spine, whereas everybody else has to be told. How does he know?
It was cold in the Spine? If it froze each night while Eragon was out hunting and tracking, why has there been no mention of it being cold? No frosty breath, no rings around the moon, no cold fingers while he's stringing his bow. I hope he had enough blankets to not freeze overnight.
Dragon Tales
So if it was cold enough for water to start freezing over while Eragon was in the Spine, shouldn't it be cold enough for water to freeze over in his wash basin? Or is he at a low enough elevation? I doubt he's had a fire going all night in his room because if you can barely afford food, you’re certainly not going to be wasting money or energy on heating a house all night.
Having lived in a room without heat, getting out of the bed is not fun. Cold floors are not fun. Splashing cold water on your face is not refreshing. Everything about waking up to sub-freezing temps and getting out of your warm pocket of air is NOT FUN.
Fate’s Gift
Egg hatches conveniently.
Awakening
What's with the burns in the palm of hand? Burns hurt and and your skin contracts to heal, which means any flexing of your hand would rip open your injury. If the injury is bad enough, your muscles will be damaged and congrats! You just lost functionality of your hand!
Eragon put the dragon on the bed near the pillow but then the dragon hooks its tail around the bed post. For some reason that doesn't make any sense. Either the pillow is jammed up against the corner or the bed posts are very short if the dragon can be on the pillow and also wrapped around the bed post.
Props for some logical thoughts on the dilemma of keeping a dragon.
He's been late for breakfast but now he’s gone out separately to go play with the dragon and no one notices? Aren't the other two awake first? I highly doubt he's getting up before them.
Is it too late to add that I'm still confused at this whole telepathic communication thing? Eragon's not freaked out at all and it's just like "Cool, so this is the new me." How does it work? Why does it work?
Tea for Two
Who is Brom again? I thought he was the butcher? Or is he the blacksmith? But the description says he's an old man. I'm so confused. If you're going to have named characters, please use some sort of repeated narrative description so I know who you're talking about. Some of us don't remember names, or faces, or both.
So Brom just tells this kid all about dragon riders? Right after the thing with the traders and the storytellers being told if they were caught telling stories about the dragon riders, they would get in trouble.
Dragons are magical. That much I understand. But I don't buy that being in close proximity to a dragon can turn a human into an elf, or at least make him look elf-like.
A Name of Power
Roran decides he's going to get married. How old is he again?
I'm not sure how a mill is hard, dangerous work when they are designed to crush grain. It's not like people are sticking their hands into the millstone to put the grain in. Most mills have a funnel the grain goes through. Sure, accidents happen and grain is heavy. The biggest danger I can see is a fire.
So Rogan is going to work the mill over the winter when there's no grain, then come back to his farm during planting and stay there. So what is the point of going and working at the mill? He's being taught to do a job and then leaving before he can do it. No business in those days and technology would spend the money to train someone that is not going to stick around.
A Miller-to-Be
Garrow is not only not surprised that his son wants to get married, but also shows no emotion towards it. He's very cut and dry, which I guess is fine for some characters. He’s very poorly developed as a person.
Eragon sees Roran decide not to take a rock with him when he leaves for a new job. Eragon takes that as a personal slight that Roran doesn't like him anymore, instead of maybe considering his cousin doesn't want to carry a literal rock around with him?
Strangers in Carvahall
So they've sat down and had their entire breakfast and said their goodbyes, but "dawn is approaching". How early do they get up each day?
If they're on a snowbound farm, how are they getting back and forth to the village?
Flight of Destiny
I think the distance between Eragon's home and the mountains have been grossly exaggerated. It took him several days of walking to go from the Spine back to Garrow's house, right? Let’s do a little math. I had a civil war reenactor tell me our 1-hour car ride on the highway to get to the event would have taken three days of walking because of the terrain (forested plateaus). The average bird has a cruising speed of 25-30 mph but can go faster when chased. Average highway speed we were going on our way to the event was 65 mph. Assuming a dragon flies about as fast as a robin or a sparrow, it would take 2 hours to fly a distance that would take three days to walk.
I don't know about you, but if the inside of my legs were completely chewed up and bleeding, I think I would notice that over being hungry. Also, with the sheer amount of muscles in the legs, there is absolutely no way that I would sleep soundly the entire night. I've been having carpal tunnel issues with my wrist and just a single micro movement can cause enough pain to wake me up. I pulled muscles in my knee and barely slept that night because any little turn would jostle the muscle and cause intense pain up and down my leg. I have gotten first degree steam burns on 90% of my hand and could barely sleep that night because of the pain.
The Doom of Innocence
I don't think creeks will freeze over completely because of the moving water.
Going back to my comment from the last chapter about flying speed versus distance, it is taking even longer to get home than it did to get there. Somehow. I know for me, when I'm traveling somewhere, going home feels considerably faster than leaving home.
Oh, yep, there's the pain and the blood trickling down his legs. Pain and blood that apparently stopped overnight so that he could get a good night's sleep. I'd change those bandages too. Better hope he doesn't tear an artery on the inside of his legs...
Deathwatch
What is it with characters being unconscious or asleep for several days at a time?
Katrina wants to marry his cousin but here she's sitting and putting her arm around Eragon. I get that it's for comfort and they've probably known each other, but that's still a very intimate and personal gesture. I find it incredibly weird if I were to sit next to a future brother-in-law and put my arm around him. Nothing wrong with embracing the awkwardness of a situation.
If Eragon and Safina can read each other's thoughts and memories, why does Aragon have to tell her what happened at the farm. Wouldn't she be able to just access his memories?
So if there's enough room at Horst's house for Garrow and Eragon after he wakes up, why didn't they put Eragon there in the first place to make everybody's life easier?
Oops…
So… I lost track of time and the book became overdue at the library. Guess I’m not finishing my roast.
Concluding Thoughts
I generally don’t like giving negative reviews unless there is something valuable that can be learned. There is a lot of value in understanding the importance in basic research and fact-checking. Being starry-eyed over a teen writer does them a disservice in the long run. They didn’t get the opportunity to mature as a writer and practice their craft. Instead of the beautiful story the author imagined, we get what feels like a first draft.
Maybe I’m overly critical in the things I notice when I read; maybe I see the world in a different way than most fantasy readers. But maybe those realistic details, especially in a fantasy world, are what make the worlds feel so real?
I found that most of my issues with the storytelling were the lack of common sense and knowledge of reality. It’s full of simple things written totally wrong. Someone will likely jump in with the defense of “but there wasn’t internet when he wrote it!” And to them I say, the internet did, in fact, exist. So did libraries and physical encyclopedia sets and educational magazines. Even asking an adult some basic questions would have gone a long way toward a more believable story.
The book has been returned and what I read of it has already slipped my mind. It wasn’t compelling enough to finish. It’s not a bad book but there are certainly ones out there that are better written, more engaging, more memorable, and more original.
