Thursday, December 15, 2011

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

This book concludes the story of Eragon, who finds a dragon egg and with it the mandate to challenge the insane rule of Galbatorix. I really enjoyed the development of Murtagh and, to a lesser extent, Roran. Eragon felt like he was written to be *the best at everything* except when he wasn't, which I found to be annoying. A lot of the plot (including the whole Vault of Souls thing) seemed to be deus ex machina developments (which, upon further reflection, are probably necessary because of the problems with Eragon's conceptualization) and I found the whole ancient language thing unsatisfying on both a conceptual (really--there's one magic language) and practical (Paolini's no philologist and no Tolkien) level. I appreciate an ending that requires some sacrifice (as this one does), but even the sacrifice felt more pro-forma (perhaps because Paolini admired this facet of other books?) than necessary. An enjoyable, if long, story, if you can put aside the annoying parts of the world.

No comments: