Review: Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Eragon is the first novel in the Inheritance Trilogy and tells the story of a boy who finds a mysterious "stone" which later hatches a dragon, Saphira. Together they embark on a quest to avenge the death of a family member and through this become involved in the dangerous politics of his homeland, Alagaesia. They must choose to side with the evil King Galbatorix or escape his agents and fight.

The story itself is entertaining, the characters compelling (Saphira was easily my favorite, Brom next-- Jeremy Irons was an excellent cast for that character in the movie.), so I can well see why it became the bestseller it did. The main character, Eragon, was believable and complex. The political elements were interesting and seemed well-developed.

I have to say that there were a couple things in the writing that really bugged me. A lot of it was written in passive voice-- he was running as opposed to he ran-- and it seemed like there was a lot of pausing for descriptive details. In a couple places, I forgot what was happening because the story broke from the action to describe something (that turned out to be really insignificant anyway) and I found myself having to go back and reread the last several paragraphs to remind myself where this was going.

The only other thing that didn't work for me was when he has his fortune told. It felt like kind of a spoiler for me. Especially the bit about his romantic endeavor. I don't want to know the high points of the whole story when I'm barely a third of the way into it. Now, the werecat's words of wisdom-- Awesome stuff. I liked that. Another brilliant character, I thought.

So over all, it was a fun, easy, enjoyable read. The sequel, Eldest, is already on the shelves, and Paolini's third book, Brisingr, will be available September 20, 2008.