Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Fantasy

Eragon is a normal kid in an abnormal world where dragon riders once existed and an evil king now reigns. While hunting, Eragon finds a hard rock in the Spine and brings it home hoping he can sell it to help his family. Except the rock hatches in to a dragon and he becomes a rider, bringing back an old tradition. The king wants the dragon and sends Ra'zoc, which kill part of his family and force Eragon on a journey to keep his dragon safe. Fortunately he has local tale-teller Brom with him who has seen a lot in his days and can help keep Eragon safe.

The result is a fairly long journey to find allies and the mysterious Varden, who are fighting against the king. Not surprisingly, this brings lots of fighting, imprisonment, and battles. The book is a fairly large one so I thought a lot of ground would be covered and we'd get in to some action with the king but that didn't happen. While I had no problems getting through the book, looking back on it I feel like not much happened. There was a lot of walking through the forest and some fighting. There were a lot of questions asked and not many answered. This was probably the most frustrating part of the books. The mysteries that were easy to figure out for yourself were identified and those, such as why Eragon saw Arya, were questioned and then never resolved.

With the book being so long, you would think there would significant character development. Eragon and Saphira, the dragon, are the centre of this book but I don't really feel like we learned much of who Eragon is. We know his past and who he was raised by but don't really know what makes him tick. I felt more connected to Brom, though I'm not entirely sure why.

Despite the problems this book has, it did capture my interest and keep it for the length of the book. I do have the second in the series so I'll read it and determine from there whether I want to continue on to the last book.

First Line: "Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

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