Christopher Paolini's Eldest Book Review

[TheCobra1]

Hey, WFG! This is my first book review/critique like this. Any advice would be helpful (Stuff I should have left out, put in, ect...).

Eldest Review

Bye: TheCobra1 #1 Review

Wow! I mean, wow! I think I read this book so much that the ancient language actually looked like someone might pronounce them. I started this book Monday night and finished it somewhere around noon on Friday. For my review I’m going to tackle a few issues with this book.

Now, Murtagh (I spelled it right!) is the renown son of Morzan, the evil Dragon Rider that betrayed the order to another evil Dragon Rider called Galbatorix. Murtagh decided that he didn’t ‘agree’ with Galbatorix and fled to join the Varden, a group of rebels that was camped out in the Dwarf mountain-city of Farthen Dur. The Varden hated anything connected with the Empire and the son of the ex-second-in-command was no exception. “But now, no one was willing to waste energy on a petty hate when so much work remained.(P. 3)” What on earth is wrong with this? People are f-i-c-k-l-e, but even if there was “so much work” they would never stop hating someone. This is the son of a person who killed many of them.

What is the Varden? The Varden is a group of rebels that is determined to bring down the authority and presence of the Empire by any means necessary. But something happened! Their leader, Ajihad, was killed after the battle that was at the end of Eragon! Finally, Eragon and Arya reach the spot where Ajihad was dying. With his dying breath, Ajihad tells Eragon to make sure the Varden does not fall into chaos. There’s just one problem: If Ajihad could think through the veil of death and think about the good of the Varden instead of “catch those Urgals!” or “I’m dying, Eragon, try to heal me. Oh, the pain!”, he would have named his successor! Because of this foolish act, or rather non-act, he places the Varden in even more danger. So, the oh-so-good-leader finally died. Fine. Now, the Varden have to choose a leader. But who to make successor? Nasuada! Yes!.... But wait, she’s a female! What’s wrong with this idea? Men don’t willingly follow female leaders into battle. Think about it. Yes, she might be the daughter of their leader, but would you choose to follow Flavius Aëtius or Justa Grata Honoria?

“The people will love her [Nasuada]. (P. 16)” Oh, great. Now we come back to the fact that people are f-i-c-k-l-e. “It is better to be feared than loved.” - Niccolo Machiavelli.

“It is custom, from days when poisoning was rampant among clans, for the host to taste the food first and declare it safe for his guests. (P. 108)” Can anyone see anything wrong with this tradition? So, the leader eats the food, he’s poisoned and dies, the clan breaks apart as factions fight till the death in the power struggle. Thousands of deaths later, a much weaker clan is left to fend for itself and is now in greater peril of being attacked by another clan, or worse, by the Empire. Yay! At least we kept to our code.

“May luck and happiness follow you and may you be a shield from misfortune. (P. 294)” Rofl! You know, this is probably my favorite line as well as the highlight of the book. Extra points for that.

One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s like Paolini wants to be a modern-day Tolkien. That is really irritating, there has already been a Tolkien. I think that most of the pages in Eldest were just filler-material. It could’ve easily been cut down 150-200 pages. He also ‘borrows’ a lot of stuff from him (Just things I came up with at the top of my hat):

1) Urgals in general, and Kull. Urgals are almost exactly like orcs (except they have horns). The idea of the Kull really jumped out at me; easily replaceable with the Uruk-hai.

2) (P. 380) The Ra‘zac sound so, so, so much like the Ringwraiths. Everything from their winged mounts they use to the very coarse breath they have!

Another thing I noticed Christopher also did was to vainly try to separate himself from Tolkien by adding a couple of facts that differ from the creatures in Middle Earth (Also off the top of my hat):

1) Elves mate, not marry. This is one that I found very disturbing and irritating.

2) (P. 542) Dwarves have fourteen total toes.

3) Urgals and all their kind have horns.

4) Morgothal. This is easily derived from ‘Morgoth’ (Read the Silmarillion), but with the ‘al’ added to it. He could of at least jumbled the letters around and made something that didn’t jump out as easily.

“It would be an abomination. (P. 474)” Elves are atheists – nature lovers, to be exact. Elves do not believe in God, a god, or gods. Since the trees, flowers, animals, water, or dirt do not come up with any moral standards, this cannot be and doesn’t make sense.

Finally, in the climax of the book and at the end there’s a battle! He didn’t do a terrible job on the battle, in fact, I’ve read books that have described battles with less… vigor. I especially liked the fact that he put so many enemies on the field (The Empire had 100,000 men. P. 587.). Not even Tolkien put so many men on the field at one time. But, why did they attack in the morning? Why not while it was still dark? This part was disappointing, because since the Empire outnumbered the Varden and their allies greatly, this would have been critical for them to do. Rome did it many times (Esp. Julius Caesar), and it was very effective. I wish that Paolini would have at least numbered how strong the Varden and Surda was.

All right, that was my personal note.

Read Ability: 6 – Well, I have to say that I didn’t always force myself to pick up the book and read it.

Genre Quality: 5.3 – Lord of the Rings was better.

Originality: 2.3 – See above.

Characters: 5.4 – I thought Eragon was a mentally and emotionally instable snot and the only reason he’s still alive is that the people around him, though not necessarily smart, are/were smarter than him.

Overall: 4.75 – Needless to say, Eldest isn't the worst book I’ve read.

Thanks for bearing with me.