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It could be a better book.Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are a LOT better than this. I recomend to children of 10,11,12,and 13 a book called The Ranger's Apprentice.
He steals almost all his ideas out of LOTR anyways and then distorts them horribly. said the bodies stacked up like 20 feet.
Brisinger sucks. I read eragon a couple of years ago and remember liking it.
they all get in a nice neat line and he kills them over the course of a half a day. It is so unrealistic in its desperation to be epic, that it just fails.
At one point this farmer kills like 400 enemy soldiers by himself or something. Absolutely disgusting after having read the lord of the rings.
I couldn't finish this book.
ITS NOTHING LIKE STARWARS WHERE THE FREAKIN' PICKLE DID ANYONE PICK UP THAT.(it is a little bit like lord of the rings BUT ITS NOT COPIED)This is one of the best books in the world ANYONE WHO SAID OTHERWISE IS MY ENEMY. Such as the 244 people that voted 3 stars or under (right now)
this is the best book ever. cant wait til` the 4th.
The Harper Hall trilogy I bought for my son as soon as he was old enough to read them. When you have a main character like Eragon, he should grow and change -- especially in relation to Saphira. The place is unique, but the "story" was captivating because you saw the world of Pern through Menolly's eyes, and McCaffrey only took the first 2 pages to hook you. Roran became an idiotic nightmare. Again, Nasuada comes across as a totally different character. In "Eldest" she continues to be a strong character, while subtly allowing the reader seeing her through Eragon's eyes, while it is revealed that her past is surprisingly a stark contrast to how Eragon previously viewed her. Again, another idea which could have been great, except it was discarded by the end of "Brisingr", replaced by another cardboard cut-out named "Galbatorix", who became just a plot device with no more character, just a nondescript bad guy. In the first book, which is by far the best of the series, Arya is introduced as a strong character, but independent and "strange" as the wind; which means Eragon falls for her, but she obviously will not be dominated, even while tortured and set to take her own life before going before Galbatorix.
In "Brisingr", Arya "became more human". Silly me, I didn't think that Brom acted in a way a father should treat his son, even when they traveled together for months. "Brisingr" also disappoints in relation to Arya, previously a strong and independent character, who is as foreign to Eragon as anyone would get. Who cares about the dwarves. Oh, of course Brom is Eragon's father.
Much changed over the course of the book that Pern became a rich backdrop for exploring the relationship between Jaxom and Ruth, who both went through the course of less than a year with dramatic changes in both of them. In fact, this is the problem I have with "The Inheritance Cycle". The "boy" who started at the beginning of the story was in no way, shape or form to take over as Lord Holder of Ruatha, yet by the end of the book, he grew and changed so much that him going back to Ruatha to assume Lordship seemed inevitable, and you were cheering your guts out at the end of the book. Otherwise, Saphira is actually a well-rounded character, unlike her Rider. How in the world did he kill so many enemy soldiers with no more than his own "brute strength.
Nasuada "changes" for no reason. So, why did she pick him in the first place. And then to get whipped by Nasuada for disobeying his "commanding officer". I found Jeod Longshanks, again, written as a minor character more interesting than Roran. The stories were so vivid in my mind's eye, because of the characters, that I remembered the plot for each of those books 20 years after having read them. In their minds, they were the "good guys". Paolini, take a note, nobody kills that many soldiers by themselves without magic.
I would rate "Brisingr" as a 1/2 star out of 5. I would like to say I enjoyed Brisingr, or that I bought "The Deluxe Edition" and eagerly scanned for the places in which an incredibly awesome thing happened, but I can't. okay, Brom was a main character in Book 1, but the plot point where he is revealed to be Eragon's father kind of takes all that and flushes it down the toilet. He's just a paper cut-out of what could have been a rich character. I thought one scene in the horrible movie "Eragon" that I did enjoy was Saphira's hatching where she catches a rat, instead of Eragon feeding her. What a cop-out that turned out to be.
Paoloni did that quite successfully in "Eragon", but in "Eldest" and especially "Brisingr" the characters failed and thus everything about the world of Alagaesia failed. Saphira, who I have to say as a dragon she was unique, even though the part where she hatches is just a rip-off of Anne McCaffrey's books. All of the sudden she becomes someone who you used to root for, yet there is no defining moment as a cause for the change. The best book I have read that has a relationship between a dragon and his rider is "The White Dragon" by McCaffrey. Nasuada could be the only person who truly believes there is good inside him.That brings me to another problem with "Brisingr" -- Murtagh has become a shallow enemy whose only appearance is to show up and be a bad guy.
Of the elves, Rhunon is one of the best yet she's a "minor" character. As a result of that, I went out (well, checked out of the library) not only "Dragonsinger" and "Dragondrums, but the three books which were for adults. Geez, after seeing the way that Ajihad dealt with Orik, seemingly "punishing" him by giving him the best assignment that he thought was swell, but which couldn't be challenged by the Twins, because it was "punishment". Unfortunately, that never happens. Same thing when I was in the 6th grade, and we read "Dragonsong" by McCaffrey. Angela and Solembum are two characters who I always enjoyed, yet their inclusion wasn't part of the original plan. The Behavior Analysis Unit of the FBI alwayd looks for a "stressor", usually the death of a loved one, or something else dramatic that once they know what it is, that's the point where there's a "turning point" that leads to them quickly narrowing their search, and becoming pro-active in their pursuit of the un-sub instead of being reactive up until that point. It would have been much better finding out about the werecats, their history and origins rather than waste time with 200+ waste of pages on their "politics".
Read 'Percy Jackson & the Olympans' series. Nasuada never encountered such a thing, and the battle of cutting herself really became a non-factor. Instead that part was so unlike Saphira that it stood out. That he stays the same is incredibly disappointing because the first of the series, "Eragon", introduced us to a boy who was thrust into a position he wasn't prepared for. Not only that, but they are falling apart because I have read them so many times. The more likely events would have to be something more along the lines of her being in love with Murtagh, and "snapping" because of what Eragon has to do to Murtagh. Eh, let's just make her "human", forget the past so she can fall in love with a boy who still has a "crush" on her, rather than layered emotion that should be present when she decides to go after him in the first part of the book. If you look at any great piece of "storytelling" (because that is essentially what the written work is, the telling of a story), like Tolkien's, McCaffrey's, Orson Scott Card with "Ender's Game", or even movies such as "The Matrix Trilogy", the characters draw you in, not the world in which it takes place.
Especially since the better developed race; the one you really wanted to know about was the elves. When you start out and introduce your main characters, you are setting up certain parameters for that character. Those are stories where the action takes place on a distant planet, but it becomes a rich world where the characters grow and change; the emphasis is on the characters. I looked at "Brisingr" at my local bookstore, and could not even find a part that interested me. I thought the rest of the series would show him "growing up" and becoming a man. The main character, Eragon, doesn't develop at all. No matter how rich the "setting" of the story is, a book (or series of books, in this case) must have STRONG CHARACTERS. Eragon remains a "teenage" punk who never grows up, despite his responsibilities.
In "Eldest" I skipped the parts with Roran until he ran into Jeod. At that moment (less than ten minutes into) the "story" hooked me, through the characters eyes, and drew me in to such a place that i would rent the movie for two months, buy a DVD player so i could get it on DVD, and watch it over and over again, and go see the two sequels back-to-back (so I wouldn't miss a thing. This is coming from someone who can read anything at a PhD level, yet talking about books that are written at a 5th grade level, the "Percy Jackson" series, to the 8th grade book "The Inheritance Cycle" (I would not recommend Paloni's work to anyone at the 9th grade level on). As the story progresses, the characters change for better or for worse, depending on what happens to them. If Nasuada is laer on going to become a problem for the Varden, then you must show why in the previous narrative that you set up for the character all along.
It's all the things Arya doesn't say which are the real beauty of her character. That's what great stories do. It's impossible. The richness of the world that you have created takes place through the "main" character's eyes When I first saw "The Matrix" I knew that it would be interesting, because of the world created by the Wachowski brothers, but when Trinity looked at the garbage truck pulled up so it would crush the phone booth (and they had already established the "men in suits" are the "bad guys"; the woman in black leather is the a "good guy"), and she ran toward the phone booth at the same time the truck was set to crush the booth, I sat up in my chair and went, "Whow". It would have been more interesting if Brom "knew" Eragon's father, and watched over him in Carvarhall as a debt of love towards the other man.
The technical aspect of writing style is woeful, but Rick Riordan does such a great job of drawing you in to Percy's world the technical aspects of writing become totally ancillary to what will draw you in, Percy Jackson and the characters he meets going along the way of his journey. Instead we get 200+ pages of the dwarf's political infighting. The characters who are really interesting are characters who were minor in nature, but had more development than the main characters did. Any great story you will always view it through the eyes of the characters. Islanzadi, Oromis and Glaedr are interesting characters, particularly how Islanzadi relates to Arya and Oromis/Glaedr relate to Eragon/Saphira. For instance, Nasuada could have felt "inadequate" to lead the Varden, and so therefore, all the decisions she makes turn out well, then that would open the door for her to get an inflated 'ego'.
I thought that Murtagh believed in the system of government that Galbatorix had set up, even though he recognized Galbatorix was evil. Galbatorix -- he is nothing more than another one-dimensional bad guy. Look, in our own history (I mean planet Earth) the "bad guys" who truly caused problems for everyone, like Hitler, Stalin, and Mengala -- actually believed they weren't doing bad things, they were "saving" parts of the human race that "deserved" to be saved.
They draw you in with the characters and let you see the world through their eyes. I am sorry to say that I don't recommend "Brisingr", even for those who loved the first two books. In fact, except for the flying, magical boat she makes, just takes an easy way out of dealing with her past and becomes a "human" who makes light of her past around the campfire.
Why would she even have to do this with some previously unknown person who shows up out of nowhere. Then we would view Nasuada's "mistakes" in leading the Varden as something that naturally flowed from Nasuada "misreading" her success as something that became all about her. I gave "Brisngr" 1 star out of 5, and that's only because you can't rate a 'half-a-star'.
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