Hmmm, me being a bitch, why thank you for such an original insult, I've never ever heard that one before and I'm obviously very hurt by it. You can see the tears of emotional pain in the way I write. Now I'm being a bitch. See the difference? I would also like to point out that if you want to call me a bitch at least be subtle about it, then it has more of a chance at actually insulting me.

No, that quote wasn't about plagiarism (duh) but the fact that he plagiarizes someone's plot then redoes it with crap quality shows that he can't even plagiarize something well. That bit I would have thought to be obvious to whoever read it but apparently you need a 3000 word essay to explain it. Being ambiguous isn't really a display of shitty writing, I suppose I overestimated the intelligence of some people on this site in the way of spotting the obvious, so do forgive me for that.

Sesc, thank you. That actually answers my question. Originality is exactly what I'm looking for, seeing this kind of thing over and over is getting on my nerves. Makes me wish my brother would actually put his insanity to use, he'd be a deserving millionaire.

I wasn't being specific to the jedi, I was referring to Eragon being a rip off of Luke Skywalker. I acknowledge that as being incredibly vague in that context. It wasn't lol material, but to prove a point.

 

Actually, I have read them. *winces* I don't think I'll bother with reading the next book, although Brisingr was better than Eldest. Barely.

 

They have their goods and bads. It's just the bads are so bad that I want to burn the book at stages and unfortunately it's them that make me place the overall as crap. Though it's one of the lower ranked on my list of crap books, Deathly Hallows is still a strong first.

 

Umm, excuse me for playing Devil's Advocate, but the Deathly Hallows wasn't really that bad either. Take out the whole camping in the woods sidestory, the ending and the epilogue, and it was a pretty badass story. Granted, those are some pretty large things to just delete from a book, but it certainly wasn't the worst I've ever read.

 

Mate, I become violently ill at the thought of seeing another book of such low quality. I hope to whatever gods there are that she never writes again, Harry Potter or not. My 10 year old cousin can honestly write something of a higher quality without the bullshit fillers, crappy epilogue, not well thought out plot and greed driven rush to finish the writing in the fastest way humanly possible. The woman can't write. That became highly obvious in the later books.

If she wasn't such a greedy bitch I might have have liked the book, but she isn't and therefore stuffed it. Seeing the decline in quality as the book became more popular only further encourages my hatred of it as she went with the stupidest ideas leaving so many horrifically gaping plot holes that even I wouldn't make. Forget about Brisingr, at least it has a few characters who don't suffer random personality changes for no explainable reason. In comparison to Deathly Hallows, Brisingr is the best book ever.

 

So, can the people who read Brisingr (I don't plan to) tell me whether Paolini has offered a reason why the Empire is so evil, or why Eragon's quest to re-establish a military junta is so noble?

 

I'm in the middle of it right now.

It's a lot more boring the first two books and I'm struggling to get through it.

 

He didn't offer what I thought to be one. Unless it's buried in the boring, steaming pile Lyndon Eye is currently shifting through. You may as well look at a synopsis of the book, it's not as though you'll miss out on much. You should be able to make up your mind from the synopsis alone, it's not like you're missing out on anything except a few hundred pages of meaningless dribble.

 

Roran = Awesome. Though he should have smashed Nasuda (Or however you spell it) over the head with his hammer.

Nausea-da = Most irritating person that exists in any book, ever. Almost as bad a... No, scratch that. She is as bad as Ginny. She's just a Ginny with command over an army.

Still, it was fun to read, besides the parts with N------ in it. Which balance it out to : Book was meh.

I'll probably read the next one, and hope we don't see as much of the idiot.

 

Spoiler

In a way yes, and in a way no.. Eragon does give some reasons, however most of them are weak and deal with Galbatrorix being the last rider and wanting to corrupt all the dragons etc etc. The strongest point Eragon has is the crimes that Galbatrorix committed in his youth, and while these may be valid they don't really explain how all the people in the Empire are evil and such. Eragon does realize that the people themselves aren't evil for the most part and he tries to win them back over when fighting them. It works on some, and doesn't on others. Overall Eragon offers no real explanations about why a group with the power to rule everything is a good thing, and it appears his line of thinking is more aimed towards killing Galbatrorix and less thinking about the bigger picture.

At the end however Oromis and Glaedr are fighting Murtagh and Thorn when Galbatrorix possesses Murtagh. Galbatrorix and Oromis engage in an argument over whether or not Oromis should join the Empire, and Galbatrorix tries to convince him that the Empire is not evil, and it is the Varden that has started all the fighting. Oromis responds that he can't make up for the crimes of his youth, and he is still the same monster.

So far it appears that the first part of your question is answered, but it is not the Empire so much that's bad as it is the ruler. The second part is never answered, and to be honest I'm not sure Paolini considered how the Riders could be in a position to abuse their power. Hope that helped

 

I agree with elvin), especially on Paolini considering how the Riders could abuse their power. It's what elvin) said is that is main reason I don't even consider there to be a reason for raising an army.

If it's really just one person then why the hell do you need an army to kill someone when the lowliest form of assassin probably has more of a chance at killing them? In short, I don't think Paolini thought it out very well.

 

I was referring to Paolini's lack of reasoning and what it felt like to me after reading the book. He didn't exactly put in a great reason for why the Empire is so evil. I was getting at he seemed like he was just throwing in armies for the sake of it. Sorry if that didn't come across properly.

 

I am in agreement with Sesc. I see the plagiarism, and I don't care. I am looking to be entertained, not awed by the awesome writing abilities of Paolini.

That said, I am pretty pissed at Paolini for his totally greedy dick move in making the series four books. I had read through about 600 pages of filler before I realized that he couldn't possibly finish the story in the next 150 pages. Book three was almost all filler, he could have easily finished the series if it weren't for all the random, unnecessary side stories. He is going the Rowling route, and this saddens me.

 

I read the first two books, and haven't decided to read the third yet. I mean, kudos to Paolini for writing this so young but it does read like it was witten by a 15 year old. Still, he would have been what, 18 when the first book was released? I know he's 24 now. His age really doesn't excuse how hopelessly juvenile the series can be.

Spoiler

Something I just can't get over is why didn't someone, somewhere along the way to being published stop him from naming his character Eragon? I'm aware it's dragon with an e, but no one is going to see that and not think Aragorn. His editor should be fired, it's just a bad name. Then we meet Arwen to elf princess, oh sorry, Arya the elf princess.

The biggest let down of the series for me was the dragon actually. When it didn't start talking right away I thought 'Hey, maybe the dragon doesn't speak, that would be a break from the mould'. Alas, it was not to be. Not only does it speak, it has no personality beyond always being right. And Saphira is apparently a name from the bible, I just found that out from a girl I go to school with who is also named Saphira.

I actually didn't mind the whole "Luke, I am your Father" bit. Original? No. Interesting? It could be. But from what I hear Paolini's gone and screwed that up. His orgins are getting too complex, and very very forced. It's painfully contrived. Damn I hope the Murtagh thing doesn't turn into a disaster of Sasuke like proportions.

I'll probably read it eventually, half a year from now in a fit of boredom. I've read worse fanfiction after all, far worse. But I'll get it at the library, I'm not paying for it.

-- No spoilers, goddamnit.
-Sorry, fixed it.

 

Yeah, his change of origins gave me the shits. It was actually rather obvious what he was going to do with them. When I read Eldest I went "Yeah, sure this going to last". You heard right.

 

I finally finished. My impressions aren't that great.

I think this book was on about the same level as Eldest. It was pretty much hundreds of pages of boring filler. The only redeeming quality was that it wasn't quite as angsty/romance-centered as Eldest, which was a huge relief.

Considering how long it took to read this, it wasn't worth the little bit of plot development.

 

I sincerely hope you didn't waste money on buying it. If you did you might want to ask for a refund. The review that Jolly Rancher found should be plastered on the back of every book, if I'd read that specific one before I wouldn't have bothered to read the book at all. Even then I found myself drifting off and found I was 50 odd pages from where I thought I was. Did anyone else have that particular problem? Or do I have a really short attention span?