Eragon

[Hateyou]

Originally Posted by Saidin

( WoT hasn't had rival yet, atleast when it was at the Rand destruction times )

Check out the Malazan series. A Song of Ice and Fire series is very good also.

[Gigfc]

I enjoyed the first few books, makes for a nice 4-5 hour set to read the first two. (Haven't checked out the third.) But holy shit, the movie was absolutely terrible, one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

[k^M]

i'd say the book is written for early teens, not for adults, eragon himself is 16 and part of the books talk about his becoming a man, first time he had to kill, magic and sorcery. a lot of people are saying its written like a child but i just dont see it, but im not a professional author critique either. worst part of it, if you have seen the movie and not read the book, or dont want to hear about the ending...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

In the first book, the shade traps eragon underground surrounded by his army, he was lured there by 2 traitors in the varden who wanted him captured alive so that the evil king could start re-breeding the dragon species as the last 2 eggs are male. anyway, he does kill the shade with his sword, but not before 1) the shade pretty much slices his entire back open from hip to opposite shoulder (plays a huge part in the 2nd book as its a constant source of pain and fear), and 2) Arya riding saphira shatter the giant blue diamond that is the heart of the dwarven nation into thousands of tiny pieces which distracts everyone in the cave and allows him to shove his sword into the shades heart. quite possibly my favorite part of the first book, but being the ultimate battle of survival most movies/novels has thats kinda common, but they royally fucked it up and altered it to hell in the movie, how they even explain some of the things in the 2nd movie that were left out of the book is beyond me. 10x worse then any harry potter book ~> movie conversion

[Lourdin]

News about the Inheritance Trilogy, by Christopher Paolini

You get to hear him ramble like his writing. But there is no longer a Trilogy. Pub date of book 3 is SEPTEMBER 23, 2008

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Urgh, just stop the hurt already.

[Azrayne]

Someone needs to petition the supreme court to order this kid from releasing any more of this trash. Ugh.

[Khorum]

I checked and sure enough the book's ISBN shelving label says "Young Adult". I know it's because Harry Potter promoted YA lit into the mainstream during the last few years or so but aren't you guys being a little harsh? It's obviously not targetted for folks who devour Goodkind and Jordan and stuff like that.

[Azrayne]

Originally Posted by Khorum

I checked and sure enough the book's ISBN shelving label says "Young Adult". I know it's because Harry Potter promoted YA lit into the mainstream during the last few years or so but aren't you guys being a little harsh? It's obviously not targetted for folks who devour Goodkind and Jordan and stuff like that.

No, his books are godawful. They're seriously the worst piece of published writing I've ever read, and I've read some pretty horrible trash fantasy novels in my time. His entire plot is basically Stars Wars set in a 3rd graders attempt at creating their own cliche fantasy universe, and his writing literally gives me a headache because of how bad it is, and I have a more than fair tolerance for mediocre writing skills.

There is literally not 'one' redeeming charactaristic of the series. It stands as a shining example of everything good fantasy should strive to not be.

The only reason it got published is because of his parents, and the only reason it became famous is because they cashed in on the whole 'lol he was 17 when he wrote it.' Which would be great, except it reads like he was closer to 12.

[Aamina]

Its true. The only reason it got any exposure whatsoever is because of his age and what they did to get it published. As far as fantasy goes its near the bottom of the...well, bottom of any fantasy list.

Sometimes I feel like it should be a fifty page children's picture book with stickers that you can place on any page you want.

[Khorum]

Well, I haven't read it but I brought my kids to the movie and they enjoyed it enough for what it was. When I went to borders I saw the books and it was labelled to be shelved in "Young Adult", you know, with the Babysitter's Club and Nancy Drew shit.

Now, I'm not doubting anyone's assessment of the book's quality, but is it really meant to be compared to adult fiction? I mean yeah, Jordan and Goodkind are really fucking shitty too, but those guys are at least writing to an adult audience and there's some basic assumptions they can (and do) make about the reader's sophistication.

[Azrayne]

No, I don't think you quite understand me here.

This is awful, even for 'young adult.' This stuff makes fucking Goosebumps look well written and deep. There's a difference between aiming for a younger, less sophisticated audiance, and just being a straight up awful writer.

I'm not comparing it to Jordan or Martin or whoever, even compared to similar 'young adult' fantasy it's quite clearly terrible in every respect. I can go back and read the stuff I read when I was 8 - 12 or so (Tamora Pierce, KA Applegate, Dragonlance stuff, early Harry Potter books, etc.), and while it won't be as good as it seemed back then, and I'll view it in a different light because I've come to expect a certain degree of sophistication and depth in my fantasy, it is still basically readable, and on some level enjoyable.

Eragon, I first tried to read when I was 15 or so. I literally could not force myself to go through with it beyond the first few pages. The writing was just that bad, the cliche of it all just that blatant, that I couldn't go a line or two without groaning. It reads like the kind of WoW fanfic you find on the official Blizzard forums. Hell, I regularly (as much as I regularly read fanfic, which is to say maybe once every few months) come across fanfic that is noticeably better written than the trash you find in Eragon.

This isn't just 'author aiming for a younger audiance,' this is just plain terrible writing. Paolini really does fall into a class of his own.

[Khorum]

Well ok. That's pretty fucking bad.

[Millie]

Once again, I haven't read Eragon, so I can't comment on the book itself. But I want to add wholeheartedly that "young adult" or even "children's" fantasy books can and should be highly complex and well written. Writing for younger audiences is no excuse for writing poorly or simplistically.

I read The Hobbit when I was probably 6 or 7, and I read Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three series at about the same age. I can't imagine those books were meant to be read by anyone much older than I was at the time, and yet, they were very sophisticated pieces of writing.

Same with all the E.B. White books from back when I was little. I realize E.B. White wasn't a fantasy writer, per se, but books like The Trumpet of the Swan, Stuart Little, and even Charlotte's Web were very brilliantly written and touched on some very mature themes. And heck, E.B. White is widely considered one of the 20th century's highest authorities on the art and technique of writing.

So, in summation, writing for kids is no excuse for lackluster writing. If anything, the stakes for good writing are even higher when you're writing for that age range. Not only do you have to write an interesting story, but you have to write "up" to kids and not "down" to them. You want them to improve their reading skills and develop their imaginations by reading your books; you don't want kids to breeze through them.

[Lourdin]

Amen, Millie - amen!

[Brand]

At the age of 32 I decided to revisit a lot of the YA books I remember from younger days...

Lloyd Alexander and LeGuin were possibly better than I remembered. You can't compare those two series to Eragon...Its like comparing a World of warcraft novel to Erikson. Even for the standard of children's books I'd have to argue that Eragon falls short...Don't get me wrong, some people will read it and enjoy it. Speaking as a adult who has read SF&F his whole life(in addition to other genres) the book sucks.

PS Trumpet of the Swan and The Giver still pwn as an adult.