Eldest

eBay: Eldest by Christopher Paolini *SIGNED* (item 8342951605 end time Oct-21-05 23:32:01 PDT)

I bought "Eldest" about a month ago, shortly after I had finished reading "Eragon." When I finished "Eragon" my final judgment of the book is that it wasn't a GREAT book, but it was a very good book nonetheless! I bought "Eldest" in hopes that it would become a great book, as the potential was definitely there. Well, I bought and read "Eldest," and my thoughts on this book is more divided then those I had for "Eragon." The first couple hundred pages of "Eldest" are great. I loved the book, it was greatly entertaining, and there were a few twists that definitely got me wrapped up in Eragon and Saphira's continuing quest. The story also showed us what was going on back home with Roran, and his sub-story was so good it was threatening to take over Eragon's story in terms of quality.

Then (without giving too much of the book away) Eragon started his training to become a rider...and the book started falling apart. At first it was kind of interesting to see how Eragon started to hone his skills in various forms of magic and sword fighting, but either Paolini didn't have a flair for writing training that was interesting, or he just spend too much time on the training period. While Eragon continues, the story keeps revisiting side characters like Roran and Nasuada, and the book started to frustrate me because THEIR side stories were becoming a heck of a lot more interesting (and, might I add, entertaining) then the main characters story! I know that the kind of training Eragon has to go through would realistically (in this universe anyway) take a long time to complete, but there's only so many scenes I can read where Eragon "closes his mind so that all the voices of nature could be heard" before I just get tired of it.

You don't see J.K. Rowling explaining how Harry failed a potions exam every single time he fails one. She just says "after several failed attempts." See, how hard is that? Luckily, the middle portion of the book wasn't a total bore. There were some good moments, a couple of neat twists, and a certain relationship with a certain female elf that all works very well in my opinion. Then Paolini seems to get back on track with the final hundred or so pages, that are very intense, gripping, and includes yet one more twist that truly came as a shock to me and now has me hungering for the third book in the series to come out as SOON as possible! But I guess the real question is whether or not I ultimately recommend "Eldest," and how good is it exactly?

My final evaluation of "Eldest" is that it's a good book. It's not an excellent book, it's not a very good book, it's a good book. This book does have problems. While not all the stuff in the middle of the book was a bore, I think publishers of this book could have edited a couple hundred various pages in the middle of the book to help with the pacing a bit (because, let's face it, some of those middle chapters REALLY sag). I also think that when the third book comes out, when Eragon goes back to his training (we know he will have to since he hasn't completed his training yet), Paolini needs to give us more glances at the training then going into so much detail of the training. As it stands now, "Eldest" may be a flawed book, but you could still find worse fantasy books. Also forgive my shameless plugging, but there is still time left to bid on a signed copy of "Eldest" on the above link. Good night everybody.