Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Eragon

This book by Christopher Paolini was published when he was only 19. It is the first in a fantasy series, and it was pretty entertaining. This book did not have the shortcomings from which Shadowmarch suffered. It was rife with action and adventure, and its final battle was pretty well done. I definitely intend to consume the rest of the series at some point.

The book starts off with Eragon, a simple country boy (some might say a cock-eyed optimist) who gets mixed up in the high-stakes game of world diplomacy and international intrigue when he finds a dragon egg. When the dragon hatches and Eragon becomes one of the fabled dragon riders, he gains all sorts of new abilities, such as augmented strength and the ability to use magic. Of course, the powers that be do not want him running around loose with a dragon, so conflict soon erupts.

A few (very minor) things about this book really irked me. 1) Frequently during swordfights, sparks erupt when the duelists clash. In reality (even fantasy generally follows our world's physics), this would not happen too often. First of all, the swords are not generally made with flint in them, and secondly, since they are so smooth and finely polished, sparks are even less likely. I'm not saying sparks will never appear, but for it to happen during every heated conflict is a bit much. 2) Eragon is trained in swordfighting by Brom, who has been a warrior for decades. By the midpoint of the novel, though, Eragon is able to disarm Brom. Even if he did nothing but study swordplay for several months, there is no way this could happen. 3) Hopefully this won't be too much of a spoiler, but Eragon gets a scar on his back at some point in the book during a skirmish in which several people die, and he complains about being "disfigured". Lame.

3 comments:

Chick in the Czech said...

That was a fun book to listen to with you!

Peter said...

Nice Seinfeld reference.

Mom said...

Did you realize that this book was written by a homeschooler when he was only 19? He graduated from high school at age 15. This fact and book were very popular with the homeschoolers at my library!