Cause he looks up to his idol, Nefar. And wants to emulate him by being a whore.

 

I read it. I knew it had very little originality. I enjoyed it. Sue me.

That being said, there was far too much preaching and too little action in this book. I don't give a shit about any deeper meaning in these books. He's ruined any chance at making this series a decent piece of literature with symbolism and all that AP English crap. He needs to get back to focusing on Eragon and Saphira raping everything in sight. That's enjoyable to read.

Also, I'm psyched for the inevitable Eragon vs. Murtagh final showdown. Most likely, though, since I'm excited for it, Paolini'll screw it up and will do something I'm expecting.

Spoiler

Kill Galbatorix first in order to release Murtagh, since he wasted 4-5 pages talking about how Eragon totally wanted Murtagh's cock even though he was a bad guy.

 

No comments on 'Brisingr'?!

 

I'm still torn about whether or not to get Brisingr; the first book was pretty good and readable but Eldest was a massive piece of crap mixed with lots of author preachiness. Did he really have to spend half the book going on about how Elves are completely awesome because they're atheist vegetarians? Was that absolutely necessary? Then there's Eragon himself, who spends most of the book being absolutely pathetic until the Elves give him his magical power-up, whereupon he becomes marginally less pathetic than he was before.

The whole Roran plot also annoyed me; it seemed like a superfluous add-on that detracted time and attention from the hero of the story (not that Eragon does a good job of measuring up to the role) and the whole "peasants with no weapons or training can easily beat a larger number of armed, armored, and well-trained soldiers" message of Roran's story arc was ridiculous. Look up how well peasant rebellions do when faced with real medieval armies to get an idea how it should have turned out. When it got to the big final battle and Roran's little group of 60 or so refugees (still lacking weapons, armor and training) arrive on a massive battlefield with tens of thousands of soldiers and manage to change the course of the entire battle it just gets beyond ridiculous.

So ... is Brisingr less crappy than Eldest, or is it another crime against literature that should be burned with fire?

 

I'll read Brisingr in a couple months when it's approvd for download in Canada.

 

After reading through the thread, and the headache I got from the retarded names in the first two books, I'm not going to bother to read the fuckfest.

Let me guess... he wins.

 

I've read the first two, and found them trash. I started this one: I stopped after the first two pages. Let's just say I don't care about the plagiarism, the bad writing itself killed all interest.

Say this sentence out loud. Then invite a friend, hide behind something and pretend its a rock and imagine watching this scene... and then, say this sentence in an undertone. Its ludicrous. Its not just bad prose; its bad prose that has already been professionally edited and published. This is a teenager getting his rocks off with a thesaurus in front of him. And that's even more pathetic because those aren't ten-dollar words that Paloni could have a hard time putting in the proper context and form.


(The plagarism btw, does not stop at Star Wars or Tolkien but encompasses a much larger set of S.F/Fantasy authors.)

 

...

ew

<filler space>

 

I liked it. I admit it. It annoys me dreadfully at times and makes me want to write little one shots detailing the gruesome death of several of the main characters, but I do enjoy it as a little distraction. The third book, however, seemed rather weak from my perspective. Read the spoilers to know why:

Spoiler

Right. To begin to understand what is wrong with Brisingr, we must begin with the length and the quality of action inside it. For all its near 800 pages worth, the book is empty and devoid of main events. It looks like one of the filler chapters in Harry Potter fanfiction. I mention the word because that is exactly what the book is. Sure, it is evolved fanfiction, moderately well delivered, lacking grammar and spelling mistakes, but a unique form of fanfiction.

Let us recapitulate what major events occurred in the third book of the Inheritance Cycle (I keep describing it differently than its title, because the title annoys me to no end and is rather difficult to spell. Why couldn't it be Empire like the fans thought it would be?). Roran and Eragon go save Katrina. Boo fucking hoo. I despise little peasant boy turned Hercules a great deal, so my opinion is a bit biased, but hey what did you expect? A lot of wasted space on that single unimportant event.

The punishment of Sloan is an intricately difficult arc, useless at that , for the matter. Sloan should have died and Eragon seems to be suffering from the same lack of will that canon Harry Potter does. If the true point was giving Eragon and Arya some bonding time, then have him go down into the fortress battling the Ra'zac, Helgrind priests, Galbatorix' wrinkled grandmother for all I care, but execute Sloan with a quick thrust to the neck. Wait can't do that, since idiot author has the mightiest warrior of the realm carrying around a stick like some ordinary shepherd.

The Eragon/Arya interaction I expected more from, but got nothing. After the heated courtship in the last book I expected something more to happen, but it has clearly been left for the last book. We all know they're going to get toghether, just make it happen and add some more tension, life threatening situations etc etc etc.

Dwarven election blah, Roran becoming great commander arc should have been scrapped. That's what pissed me off most about Eldest. The book is about Eragon triumphing over Galbatorix, not Roran's little peasant adventures while he and Katrina have ten sons to work on the farm.

The whole Brom revelation I despised. I actually liked Brom, but making him Eragon's father seemed a wrong move in my eyes. Morzan's son striking down the Emperor in a rage seemed appropriate. Brom's son is too much of handing down the flame and so on. It also seems to diminish Eragon's origins in my eyes, but I prefer Morzan to Brom, so it's biased.

Now for parts that I liked:

I enjoyed Eragon's mother being evil, or the illusion of in the beginning. I hate goody two shoes boy from golden parents (Harry Potter) rescuing the world in righteous golden light, the archangels singing and the virgins welcoming him in their arms. Boring, overdone etc. A little evil would have spiced things up.

I liked that the elves marched out and started slaughtering. My biggest gripe with LOTR was that we did not get to see a last march of the elves, the might of the ancient race destroying everything in its path.

Major Problems:

Nasuada, whom I have despised since her introduction needs to start knitting, cooking and singing, and leave war to those who have any clue about it. Hell, Eragon could have led the Varden better. In fact the whole Eragon becoming everyone's slave arc is starting to bother me. If he will marry Arya and call Islandzi mom, will he have to wash her feet with his hair too? I don't mean to come across as sexist. Nasuada being a woman, has nothing to do with my dislike of her. If she were more Iron Lady than dumb teenager I would have appreciated her. Instead she has idiotic ideas, ignores her advisers and will probably start screaming girl power soon and copulate with urgals. Hope they rip her apart.

Still, despite all criticism, I liked it. I don't know why, but it adds a little corner in my universe that I enjoy. It's like tonic water. Love the taste, hate the after taste.

 

So yeah, this book was a guilty pleasure. Something to fill the void as I wait for all the awesomeness being released in '09.

As for Brisingr:

Spoiler

Paolini delivered exactly what was expected, which kind of ruined it for me. I tagged Brom as Eragon's father in Book One, and the confirmation was anticlimatic, I suppose. Not much to say there.

I don't care so much about the plot being vaguely torn from Star Wars, up until the finer points in this latest installment, but the blatant stupidity of some of these characters (Roran is the exception that proves the rule) made me put the book down more than once and go write/work/fap/eat/swim/sleep/what have you... Seriously, a wooden stick reinforced with magic to replace a sword? Seriously. Paolini should've given Eragon a fucking battleaxe to vent some of his emo doubts until he could go dig up some moon rock to smelt his fire-sword.

And also, fire-sword everytime Eragon utters "Brisingr!"!? Okay, sure, why not? No problems there, none at all. The imagery is so cool. I can see it now...

"Light the cooking fire, bitc-Eragon," Arya commanded, her severe brow a flawless terrain of disinterest and aloofness.

"Okay, babe," Eragon replied, moving to allow the sheath of his mighty blue sword of death to poke out behind him. "Brisngr! There we-OH SHIT!"

The sword on his hip flared to life and the super-heated flames ignited his cotton trousers and flesh. Swiftly the flames took to his supple young elvish body, and naught but futility could save him. So died Eragon, so failed the Light Side, and Darth Galbatorix's evil reign doth spread across the galaxy...

Yeah.

There's no main plot to this book - I think that's the problem. Because I do like this series, but there's 800 pages of sheer, abrasive poor plotting in Brisingr. Paolini needs to be told that you can't just throw in elves and dwarves and dragons by the truck load and call it epic fantasy. And a lot of the times it's like he's trying to beat Tolkien at his own game, using fancy words and pausing to admire flowers or some shit during a battle.

Roran was a redeeming factor in this novel. Although his plot may have no point come Eragon defeating the wicked king, his hammer killing sprees are EXACTLY what Eragon should be doing, but on a grander scale. Katrina had it right when she said that Roran was braver and more badass than Utter!Awesome!Dragon Riders because he takes names without the aid of magic. Although that said, Roran's seeming ability to achieve his goals simply because he sets his mind to it is a little farfetched. He should've failed at some point.

Oh, and I got five dollars and my first born that says Roran becomes King of the land after Eragon kills Galbatorix. All the pieces are there for Rorans ascension - just you wait.

Okay - I didn't hate the book, and I don't love it - but I'm invested till the end. Paolini's getting $40 out of me for Book Four.

 

You know something I realized? It's been a year or so since I read book 2, and I can remember nearly nothing about this rip off of a series.

I haven't read a good chunk of the Dragonlance books in years, nor Harry Potter canon, nor several other series, but I still remember nearly every major plot point and several jokes, events, etc. As big as this series is, to someone like me who flies through books and has 4 bookshelves slammed packed, it's utterly forgettable. God I wish the movie version was.

 

However the hell the 'Inheritance Cycle' books so far are called award winning is beyond me. If you end up plagiarizing you're entire plot line and characters from already popular (loosely used) films and or books of course you're going to write an 'award winning book at 16'. That is kind of the reason he did it in the first place, TO MAKE FAST MONEY. All he had to do was slap in some magical crap, steal a few LOTR ideas and pray that the lawyers wouldn't notice a giant blue fire breathing lizard was replacing an X-wing.

As to the extra book, it's a money making scheme much like J.K.R. and her spectacularly shit last book. I thought the third book was even more crap than the last and no doubt the 'last' (what's the bet he makes it five?) book will be even worse. He's a dirty scrobler feeding off the talents of others, the lawyer should have sued his arse off by now and hopefully when he magically crams the entire Harry Potter series in the last book, they will.

 

Well...Someone has ranting issues.

Sure the premise is pretty similar, and the execution steals from every major fantasy/sci-fi book out there. That's pretty much what people do when they write, they take parts from other books that they like and adapt them for their universe. If you hadn't figured it out by the second or third book, and couldn't ignore it, stop reading the series. I don't think anyone cares to hear you re-hash the bits everyone has said for the last 2 pages.

That being said, I did like the other two books, and I'm going to pick this one up from the library in a few days. I'll post my own (mediocre) review of the book in a couple days.

 

Yeah, people do take pieces from other books, it's just that they usually don't steal the entire plot from a popular movie and slap a dragon in it. I'm simply registering my astonishment that anyone can actually like this crap let alone call it award winning. A perfect example is what Fine Balance quoted from the book which proves he can't even plagiarize something well.

My ranting issues stem from the sheer stupidity and repetitive crap that people like these day. Can someone please tell me what exactly makes this sort of crap interesting to read? I'm genuinely curious to see if it's just the publisher making it look good.

 

First of all if your going to be a bitch then get it right, he was quoting because the writing style sucked. That quote wasn't about plagiarism. I realize that you may have been saying that he was a hack writer as well as somebody who plagiarizes; however the fact that you leave something so simple as that ambiguous gives you no room to talk about shitty writing.

As for the book, I liked it.

Spoiler

However I felt that a lot like Eldest it lacked action and tried to get to complicated. The main reason I loved Eragon so much was the action kept coming throughout the whole book. It didn't bother me at all that the plot was really really similar to some other stories out there because it was just a fun book to read. Eldest I thought was a pain to get through at some points because the author decided to go fangirl on the elves. Brisingr I felt was better then Eldest, but not better then Eragon.

It had some action to it, but it felt like 150 pages could have been cut off with ease. Some things seemed to be completely unnecessary such as Sloan, the gold flower, Eragon being at the dwarf selection, and other stuff I can't be bothered to remember. All that being said however, I felt it was still fun to read, and I will definitley be getting the next, and hopefully last book of the series

Sesc summed up why I like these types of books pretty well.

 

Yeah, I didn't get that.

To be honest, I'd compare them to lightsabers really, a status symbol and a weapon that only the dragon riders / Jedi could use.

Any Joe Blog can use an X-Wing, at least in the star wars universe, it isn't unique to Jedi.

Though I guess the coloured swords could be argued for as the lightsabers....