Well, the thing that annoyed me the most about the Historian is that 3 or 4 of the characters sounded like the same person. Undistinguishable. For me that kills the pleasure of reading something, you can't believe it anymore when it happens. I can't say that about Eragon. So yeah, maybe the style of the writing was more polished in the Historian, that doesn't make the book "good" for me. There are other things that count.

Granted. For a book to be truly great (or even good) all the elements must work together, but if the writing is poor then I have a hard time paying attention to anything else. But in the case of 'Eragon,' I made a concious effort and, BY GOLLY it was all bad!

I like it. Granted I only got halfway through it before a tornado stole my only copy, but I still thought it was really good.

Has anyone heard anything about the movie? I hope it's not going to be another 'Ella Enchanted'. Man was that movie BAD.

quote:

Originally posted by Domina Flamma:
I like it. Granted I only got halfway through it before a tornado stole my only copy, but I still thought it was really good.

I shall try this at my next bookclub, when I haven't finished the required reading. I live in London...

I'm quite enjoying Eragon, though I've only just started. At least it isn't Shadowmancer - now there's an overhyped piece of truly, truly crappy writing.

quote:

Originally posted by APEX:
everyone has to start somewhere; give the kid some time to develop more, see what happens. does anyone have an idea of what the average age of published authors is? i'm pretty sure it isn't anywhere between 16-18, so don't try to compare him to an esteemed university languages professor. he got published; good for him. don't be jealous.

See now, the thing is that because he got published so early (by dint of his parents owning a publishing company, right?), Paolini basically short-circuited the whole "time to develop more" process. Most authors have to take the time to polish and refine both the process and the product before a publisher even deigns to give a rejection that includes advice and criticism, rather than a boilerplate "not what we're currently looking for" letter. But not Paolini.

And those young authors who are taking the long path, paying their dues and learning how to produce something of true originality and quality, why shouldn't they be jealous? Along comes some guy w. a doorstop of a manuscript that cribs plot and characters (but not style and substance) from more worthy predecessors, a vanity press, and a marketing campaign, and people are scooping it up like it was the second coming of Shakespeare?

If I wanted to read fanfic, I'd go to fanfiction.net.

(note to self: stop attempting to post after coming home from a drinking party)

I'm 2/3's of the way finished with this book. Like I'd said before, I'd heard mixed things about it, so I didn't have big expectations and so far, I'm enjoying it as a riff on Star Wars but with dragons.

But I have to ask, "Eventually, you are planning on having Dragonriders in your Dragonrider series, right?" Because at pg. 350, the dragon is usually very much in the background (she never goes into the towns with them, he never really rides her because he's travelling with someone else, so he rides a horse with his companions and the dragon flies above). And any dragonriding is not really much more special than Aragorn riding a horse.

*bump for Froggy*

I'd have to agree with most of the critical comments here.
I was shocked when I read it, how much was ripped off directly from Star Wars and how much acclaim the book was getting with no-one mentioning that he had ripped off the plot and characters. It uses a lot of worn fantasy tropes, unoriginally, with weak prose.

Doesn't deserve most of the attention he's received.