Ari Morcos: I understand your annoyance with Paolini's writing style and the plot, but I have a couple counterarguments. First of all, practically all fantasy writing is based of Beowulf. Tolkien based everything on Beowulf. Every story that starts with a common person as an aspiring hero requires the hero to learn from some sort of mentor. The hero learning the skills himself would take a long time and it would be very boring. Other people have used it because it works. It's as simple as that. Second of all, I can't believe you predicted the plot. How could you have predicted that Arya was poisoned or that Murtagh was Morzan's son??? I've read almost every well known fantasy book and there was no way I would have predited that. Third, when you argued about the fact that Eragon used Brisingr (what he thought was curse word) was unlikely didn't make sense. Brom told Eragon that it required a strong arm to use his bow. Assuming that Eragon would be tired at this point he woul d grunt or say a curse word when he shot the arrow. Overall, I thought the book was very intriguing. I believe that you are searching for something to hate. Yes, there are some minor writing flaws, but beyond that it is a very fun book that I had trouble putting down.

[Want to see my response? Here.]

Donielle: Great essay really. You pointed out every little annoying thing about this book that I just couldn't quite put a finger on while I was reading it. It's an easy read, and if someone wants to read it just because its there, go right ahead, it'll only take you a few hours. I'm an avid reader and will read anything someone hands me, which is why I started and finished this book. I was so emerged in my "been-there-read-that" feeling that I darn near fell asleep several times. I definitely won't be reading this book a second time, which, coming from me is paramount to saying I hate the book.

ALISSA: I THINK THAT YOU SHOULDN'T WRITE ESSAYS ON HOW TERRIBLE THINGS ARE AND SHOULD KEEP CRITISIMS TO YOURSELF. ME AND PRACTALLY THE REST OF MY SCHOOL INCLUDING A FEW TEACHERS ARE MADLY IN LOVE WITH ERAGON. I FEEL IT'S OK TO EXPRESS YOUR OPINION BUT YOU REALLY MADE ME ANGRY. AS YOU SAID YOU ARE AN AUTHOR TOO AS IS CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI. I THINK A FEW CRITISIMS ARE OK, BUT A HATELISTING??? AND ALSO ERAGON THE MOVIE COMES OUT JUNE 2006. I THINK THAT PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE STORIES THAT ARE SLIGHTLY PREDICTABLE EVEN IF THEY FOLLOW PLOTLINES SIMILAR TO OTHER STORIES.

THANKS FOR LISTENING.

swankivy: Ahh yes. Now since Miss ALISSA here did not feel it necessary to include an e-mail address with her comment, I'll show everyone what I have to say to HER. I shouldn't write how terrible things are? Why not? I have an opinion that this book should not have been published for the reasons I covered. I think it makes a mockery of fantasy writing and the publishing industry that this is what is successful right now--it makes me lose a lot of faith in people and that is sad. You and the rest of your school are "madly in love" with the book, including teachers? Sure, okay. That again makes me lose faith in humanity, thank you very much for that. It changes nothing. A few criticisms are okay but a hatelisting is not? Well, I wrote more than a few criticisms, sure (it deserved that many), but YET AGAIN (do I have to say this every time I get forms from you jerks?) I AM NOT CARA and I DO NOT OWN THE HATELISTING although I did join it and do support it. I think what people don't understand is we didn't just dislike the book. We have a problem with it; we think both the creation of the story itself and the way it got published are grounds for public bitching, so we did so. I'm an author too so I shouldn't insult others for doing a crap job? I guess I'm supposed to respect him as an author just because I too know how hard writing is? Hardly. If possible I am MORE offended because I know how much better my writing is than his (and okay, so that's subjective). And as for predictability, having a basic story type is one thing but taking story elements from a pre-made template is not. Eragon crosses the line easily. That's all I have to say about that, though I thought I'd already said quite enough. . . .

Xeheqlar: I agree completely that this book is an abomination to all literary works. It is also an insult to other aspiring writers--the media claiming this is about the best a young author can do. Age doesn't mean jack. The youngest author was 4 years old.

Sardonyx: Remember me? I was just re-reading your essay for about the fourteenth time. It's just so funny and it's great to see that there are some intelligent people left who haven't gotten sucked into the plagiarism hype. Paolini dressing up in costumes and raving about his "masterpiece" as if it came from a long and hard bout of musing and contemplation and letting the creative genuis in him blossom like a pretty flower...it's beyond ridiculous. He's an insult to all the excellent authors who put sincere passion into their writing and work/worked long and hard for well-deserved recognition, like Tolkein, J.K. Rowling, Francesca Block (GODDESS!!!!), Will Shetterly, David Clement-Davies, Meredith Pierce, and so many others he stole from. It's so sickening! Anyway thank you for so refreshingly wording the extent of stupidity surrounding all this hype.

Sardonyx: My goodness, I'm so angry I could burst like a flesh firecracker. ELDEST HAS KNOCKED HARRY POTTER OFF THE #1 SPOT! HOW F'KED UP IS THAT? And listen to this: "I'm most proud of the dwarf language because I created that from scratch and it has a wonderful meaty sound," he said. "If I had a chance to actually go into the land of Alagaesia, I would live with the dwarfs and I would write dwarf opera because their language has such a great sound." "Created it from scratch"? ARRRRRGH! *bangs head against the wall and rips hair* Can we take a mallet to his head? Please? It's HARRY POTTER! HARRY POTTER! What could be better? (Well, I like Lord of the Rings better but the books aren't as great as the movies, whereas it's vise-versa with HP.) And DWARF OPERA?? And how does a language have a meaty sound? Maybe a meaty taste on your mouth when you say it but that sounds bizarre. ("Bizzare" means a lot coming from me.)Then again this is someone who, in an unbelievable act of stupidity, wrote "Sorry," apologized Brom. I doubt an 8-year-old would be that ridiculous. *headdesk*

Pirate_Keke: I just want to say that I LOVE your essay! It's absolutely brilliant and so damn funny. I frequently come back and re-read it just for laughs. "OMG I gotz magic??" That alone was enough to send me rolling. As well as the (but not, of course, on his face, only upon skin that will show if he takes off his battle gear in the privacy of a secluded room, preferably with a sexy elf woman watching). So hilarious!

I really hope that you read the second book, Eldest. I would love to read your response. From what I read on amazon.com it's even worse then the first. I simply cannot wait to read it myself to see how horrible it is. What I don't understand how people find this book better than the Harry Potter series or any the other great fantasy books out there.

Oddly enough I recently had the honor (cough) to meet a real live Eragon Fan. He is a freshman at my high school and in one of my classes. He had Eldest spread out all over his desk and I, testing the waters, leaned over and asked him if Eldest was as bad as the first one.

I wanted to laugh so hard at the look on his face. Absolutely shocked. He looked as if I had just reached over and slapped him silly. Then of course he asked me if I was serious. I had to laugh then. To save space I'll just put the gist of the conversation into script form. Behold my l33t skillz, fools!

Fan: Eragon was +he b3s bo0ks ev3r!
Me: I hated that book. It was so clichéd and totally ripped off other stuff like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
Fan: [smirking] Lord of the Rings was the m0s+ b0ring b0ok ev3r! I couldn't even get past the first 5 pages!
Me: [internal laughing] But I'm talking about the actual content of the book (LoTR). Like Eragon stole a lot of names from it and just changed around a few letters. Not to mention it basically copied the entire plotline from Star Wars.
Fan: [glare] ...
Me: [glare] ...
Fan: [turns around to sulk over his book]
Me: Ha! I just PWNED you f0oL!!1!1

Okay, so maybe that last line is a lie but the rest is actually true. I'm a bit disappointed because I wanted to go on about how it copied from Star Wars and give a little more detail on how it copied from LoTR but he turned away from me. I paused thinking that he was going to respond but he didn't so I lost my chance. Dammit.

But it was 7th period on a Friday and I was half asleep. Bah.

Anyway, about the whole "Harry Potter getting knocked down by Eldest" you guys have to remember that that's just on amazon.com alone. In the US alone Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has sold 6.9 million copies within the first 24 hours. That's about 250,000 books per hour and THE fastest selling book in history! Eldest didn't get anywhere NEAR that!

Pssh! Anyway, I loved your essay, Ivy, and I really hope that you read and review the next book.

Pirate Keke

Anonymous: It has been just over a year since I finished Eragon, and a year ago I closed the book, after finishing the last page, comofrted, contented. I was satisfied, if you will, with the ending. Somewhat surprised, curious as to the future of our hero, wondering how on earth the author would tie up the countless loose ends left to his readers.
Here I should offer a little background; fantasy has always been my genre of choice. A healthy obsession, a time filler and something that would often trigger a responce of my already overactive imagination.
I have studied the classics (Tolkien, McCaffery, L'Engle). Actually, devouored would pose as a more proper description.
And with a mutual understanding and intelligence in this literary area, I also realize that EVERY story has been told. Humanity, in every novel ever written, is repetative with its ideas.
Granted, Eragon's similarities are blantanly obvious, it is still the same concept.
I enjoyed the novel. As a teen obsessed with fantasy of any kind, it was an ideal read. I loved Tolkien, and was happy to see a bit of his influence. McCaffery's Dragon Riders of Pern, Harper Hall trilogy... all of her works are amazing. Similarily, I enjoyed the exploration of a few of her ideas. (McCaffery found Eragon to be satisfactory, by the way, and praised it in her review of the novel) Rather than penalize Paolini for being influenced by the greats, why not enjoy reading more of the themes that have soooooo impressed us?
Also, (an afterthought, or siderack from my main idea, but please read on) I did not find the writing to be unsatisfactory. Every author has semi-abysmal first drafts. We rely on the editors to tear apart our work, and return it suitable for publication. If the many adjectives for said were overused, penilize the editors just as much as the author PLEASE.
If there was too much description for your liking, then don't praise Tolkien in your review, for he was the king of overdecribing a scene.
I did enjoy the review, for the most part, but I found the arguments to be semi-weak in their foundation. The quality of writing of this review offered me little proof that the author would fair better than Paolini with the publication of a novel.

swankivy: This person didn't leave an e-mail so I can't address these comments, unfortunately. Too bad, I'll just have to mention them here. Again with the defense that every plot has already been taken--b.s. "Oh, Paolini can't be expected to come up with something original, there ARE no more original ideas left in the world!" Give me a damn break. We're all influenced by the greats but setting our writing in someone else's world and writing fanfiction is ridiculous. Incidentally, the poke saying I shouldn't praise Tolkien if I think Paolini over-describes--I do think Tolkien over-describes. I think that by today's standards if Tolkien tried to get published they would cut a lot of his description. What he was doing then was so different from everything else that there weren't standards for it yet, and because overall he had a form and concept that was so original and imaginative, his work was important. I'm not saying it doesn't have its flaws, but I do think that copying the dumbass stuff about Tolkien as well as stealing his good aspects still results in crap.

Look, you people are allowed to like the book. I didn't. I've made that clear. But there are two camps of people who like it: One, people who think it's not derivative and blast me because they can't see it; and two, people who know it's derivative and are defending Paolini's right to rip stuff off. This comment is in the second camp, and that's the more annoying of the two because at least the people in the first one are just too inexperienced to have seen his influences.

News flash: I know Anne McCaffrey praised the books. I don't like her either, but I don't think she's a bad writer. It's flattering to be copied. Believe me. It's happened to me too. And as for the writing, you don't find it to be unsatisfactory probably because you think sentences like "But when he would be returning, he knew not" are epic and artful rather than, ya know, silly. We who have seen many attempts at artistic rendering know that Paolini's writing style is wraught with attempted epic-ness like this--it's mind-numbingly goofy, the way he tries so hard to sound dramatic and ends up reading like a high school descriptive English project. And as for my arguments, I venture to say their foundation is rock-solid regardless of whether you like the book in spite of its problems. I know that's possible. But to insist that because you liked it anyway, the problems don't matter is to deny that there are standards in writing. (The bit about how I probably will not get published based on my negative review's structure is just an obvious bit of intentional nastiness. You KNOW you can't tell by my persuasive essay-writing what kind of novel I might write, so that's just an attempt to sound knowledgeable coming off as petty. Eat me.)

Junko: Hi Ivy - I stumbled upon this review while I was searching around for a negative Eragon review. I read the book a few weeks ago, and although I did not hate the book altogether, I wasn't overly impressed by it. But since everyone around me was all hyped up about it and the author was only 15 and all that, I just put it down as me being too critical about books, as usual.

After I read this review though, I understood what my problem with this book was! It's a rip-off from LOTR and I didn't like the fact that everyone made a fuss out of this book just because of the author's age. A book's a book and you should judge it by the content, not the age of the author. The lack of character development really bothered me too; I hated Eragon's character, couldn't care less about Arya - or frankly, I couldn't care less about any of the characters.

Anyway, this is getting very long but my comment is: I agree with you 100% regarding this book! I hope you make more book reviews in the future because they are such fun to read.

blackroseasylum: Brilliant essay. I myself am a fan of Eragon (blasphemy!), but I understand and agree with the points that you bring up, though I've managed to overlook most of them and thoroughly enjoy the novel.

And ALISSA, your comment probably would have been more effective and less childish if YOU HADN'T TYPED IN ALL-CAPS. :)