Eragon

by Christopher Paolini, 2003

How does a book this bad get to be a best seller? “An authentic work of great talent.” – The New York Times Book Review. Don’t ever believe any review by them! (Or, read the entire review…)

Authentic? Hardly – stolen from Lord of the Rings, but he never gives JRR Tolkien any credit – “I created Eragon…” is the first sentence in his Acknowledgements.

Eragon – Aragorn

Brom – Gandalf

Elves – Elves

Dwarves – Dwarves

Great city underground, hidden door – great city underground, hidden door

Arya – Arwin

Urgals – Orks

He even has a special fighting ork – Kull

Galbatorix – Sauron

Magic and dragons – probably stole that from Henry Potter. Or maybe the dragon is the only original thing in the whole book (NOT – see Amazon review).

He wrote this when he was 15 – graduated H.S. after being home-schooled all his life. His parents published it. His Mom arranged a book tour. (He lives in Paradise Valley, Montana.)

All would be acceptable if it was well-written, but it’s written so poorly (like a 15 year-old!)

Poor character development, the main character is so unlikable, poor dialogue, poor description. Why did I keep reading? I can’t really say. He’s written 4 books and Danette had just bought the 4th book. I can’t wait to read something good now. I’m sorry, Danette and Dee – this was a terrible book!

Just read Amazon reviews – they all agree with me – “Star Wars/LOTR rip-off – and very poorly written, never should have been published!”