Inheritance Cycle

Rather than continue to spam up the "What Novel Are You Currently Reading?" thread, I thought I'd make a thread specifically to discuss Christopher Paolini's magnum opus.

So yeah.

I've only read Eragon and Eldest (so please, mark spoilers for Brisingr, if you don't mind ^_^), but despite the fact that those two were highly derivative, I rather liked them (my favorite of the two is easily Eragon, and my (only) favorite character, Murtagh). A lot of the like was from being easily amused by guessing the plot ahead of time, or speculating as to whether Eragon might actually be a sociopath or if we'll find out that Galbatorix has really been a good guy the whole time, and other stupid reasons Paolini never intended. But, I still want to find out how it all ends. They're the Twilight Saga for fantasy lovers- poorly written, (mostly) unlikeable or unremarkable characters, but still so damn addictive I have to keep reading.

And speaking of the writing, you have to be careful when calling plagiarism, but in this case, I feel pretty safe saying that even if Paolini may not have sat down in front of the tv with the Star Wars trilogy, opened up Lord of the Rings, and started writing, he sure borrowed from them unconsciously. A lot of works follow the standard hero cycle- it's how you choose to follow the cycle that matters. And if Paolini had followed Star Wars any more closely, I think he'd have heard from Lucas' attorneys. This review of Eragon on Amazon has a nice list of the similarities, as does this page.

What do you all think of the books? Fans, or no? Discuss. Comments about the movie adaptation could go here, too, I suppose.

 

Eh, all fantasy, to an extent, is derivative. But many authors can take something they borrow from another author and still make it their own. In my opinion, Paolini might as well have called his world Middle Earth, instead of Alagaesia. His elves are pretty damn close to Tolkien's elves, as are his dwarves, the settings are similar, a lot of the names are either very close, or downright identical to many of Tolkien's, and there's Paolini's elvish, which is kinda like Tolkien's, except more like someone took part in that "Smash face on keyboard; post results" thread of ours. Then there's the human Eragon falling for the Elvish princess Arya storyline- Aragorn and Arwen, anyone?

Honestly, if it were just the similarities to Tolkien, I wouldn't even bother to comment on it. Tolkien had so many great ideas that have inspired others that you could draw similarities between him and probably everyone else who came later in the genre. But throw in the similarities to Star Wars, The Dragonriders of Pern (I mention this series outright because I've read them. I'm not familiar with the other works that people claim he's plagiarized), and examples (there's one on the second link I posted, I think) of what can only be downright stealing from several other authors, and it's not just the familiarity of the genre anymore.

 

I see a lot more- I think you can pretty much take a summary of Star Wars, replace the names with characters from Inheritance, and you have Paolini's story. But I can understand that not everyone might see it that way.

It's interesting that you say that, because I've heard that Brisingr is like 700 pages long, or something, but nothing important ever happens. And yes, major suckage that I haven't been able to read it. The one copy at the local library has been overdue for almost a month, and, miserly as I am, I hate to buy the third without owning copies of the other two. But I may end up breaking down and picking it up soon.

See, one of the problems I have with the series, and perhaps this will change after reading Brisingr, is that so far, I have seen nothing to prove to me that Galbatorix is evil, except that Paolini says he is. So far, I think all he's done, besides wiping out some dragon riders (who may have been corrupt, for all I know) is raise taxes and ally himself with some questionable folk. I know I'm not reading this as intended, but I tend to see the Varden more as terrorists than freedom fighters.

Despite my mini-rant, I am interested in the series. Lord knows it's better than some of the crap I've read over the years. I really dislike Eragon and Arya, and a lot of the side characters, but Orik is pretty okay, Brom was cool, though his story was obvious (or has been thus far), and Murtagh was epic (in the first book). Eldest made me so pissed off when it came to him, but I'm gonna hold out hope that his story gets less annoying and he returns to his previous state of anti-hero awesome.