Tony D.: I would just like to say that I enjoyed reading your essays on the Inheritance Cycle. They were very well written, and like the Eragon Sporkings page, very funny and a joy to read. In fact, I would rather read your essays another ten times before I read Eragon and Eldest a second time.

I am inspiring writer myself, currently in college, and your essays gave some wonderful advice as to what to do and not to do in writing. And it saddens me when I see such high praise for such terrible written books like Eragon and Eldest. But it also give me hope to know that I am not stupid enough to throw my stories out there right away when I know there not ready.

Peter Parker: A friend of mine started to give me a synopsis of Error-be-gone (Eragon) and I finished it for her, simply by recounting the synopsis for Star Wars. It sickens me that this kid has made so much money for complete lack of effort.

Yellow: So true, muh friend. So very, very true.

Astrid-157: ~ To Ivy
^_^ You brightened my day when I read your essays.

Moving on...I'm just wondering if you wondered how you would have done it if you were writing the Inheritance trilogy? It had potential to be as grand as LOTR (which I believe took 14 years or so to write), it's like watching child being born to crackhead parents (how's that for an original simile? >_<). I am a fantasy writer myself, and I sometimes use books like the Inheritance trilogy and the later half of Harry Potter (I'm not saying it's terrible, but the romantic relationship between Hermione and Ron was horribly forced) to pick a scene and say, "God! I can do so much better!". Fuel for the fire, y'know? As a side note for the commentors that insulted you about the whole "Well, how would you know about writing bestsellers? You were never one!", who in the hell made the rule that you had to be a famous writer to critique a writer's work? You do not have to be a writer to say, "Well, I don't like this book and this is why." I know that you've already said this, but I just wanted to back you up.
Thanks again for taking the time to write the essay. I'm planning on doing an "Interview" of Eragon on my profile page in August on gaiaonline.com. My screenname's Astrid-157.

Pirate Riddle: Oh...just one more little note. Would you call the Inheritance trilogy the Spark Notes of fantasy?

Nancy: Um, best essay ever?

I think Eragon should be recommended to all young, aspiring writers as a guide of what NOT to do. There's so much purple prose and wooden dialouge that I think it can really be beneficial.

Tao Sun: You may want to elaborate on the historical Black Hand, which was the group responsible for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. (Which helped ignite the First World War)

I think Panolini's lucky the Black Hand's been long dead, otherwise he'd probably have his pants sued off.

Either that or be shot twice in the chest while riding in an automobile with his girlfriend.

Joe: Hey, wow...well written essay. One thing: When did you write this essay?

Because I've heard these points put forward time after time, and although I am not an eragon fan or anything, Im getting bored of them.

So tell me, were you the one to spawn these hundreds of anti eragon articles on the web, all saying the same damn thing, or did you just search into google: anti eragon. Then spend a little time and wrap this up.

No offence intended, and if you did write this yourself, and if these are YOUR words and ideas, nice job. You are hella smart.

Joe. (Of course it's not my real name.)

swankivy: In case you guys were wondering, yeah, my essay does pre-date Anti-Shurtugal, the Eragon hatelisting, and most of the bad press on the Internet. You can spot it dated October 2003 on Amazon and Everything2.com in slightly earlier/shorter drafts, and it went on my old site in January 2004. If you see bits of this essay around the 'Net, THEY took it from ME, not the other way 'round (and yup, I've had to fight people to have the essay removed from being posted in full on other sites, too).

(Largely a response to Daniel's comment.)

Betsy: Daniel, I'd just like to say that encouraging people to join Anti-Shurtugal is not wrong. I also want to thank you for a response that gave me hope that there might be a fan of Eragon out there who can do something other than say 'OMG HOW CAN U HATE ERAGON? YOU'RE EVIL! U SUX!' which, quite frankly, is mostly the response I have seen (and that's no matter how polite the other person is). Anyways- everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Can I ask you to please read some really good fantasy and then compare it to Paolini? I'd suggest trying out Pratchett (satire fantasy), Neil Gaiman (pretty much awesome, sometimes satirish), Tolkien (though your attention span, like most people nowadays, might find it too long), and John Flannagan's 'Ranger Apprentice' series, which is aimed more at your age range and yet is very well written.

I'm not trying to be mean to you or disparage your taste. I liked Eragon the first time I read it- it wasn't until reading 2 that I started noticing all the plot holes and purple prose.

Also, though you didn't bring the argument up, I would like to state something that seems to baffle most people. It is not at all unusual for people to write books at 15. I finished my first book right around when I turned 15. Granted, it's fairly cliche, but it's still a book. I finished another collaborative book about a month or two after that. Since then, I have won NaNoWriMo, started editing my collaborative novel, and begun working on another novel. I will be doing NaNoWriMo again this year.