Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
I am three books deep into this “cycle” and I really wish that Paolini would do the world a favor and just stop writing. In Brisingr, he adds Dragonheart and Redwall (sword forged from the metal of a falling star) to his list of stolen themes, while remaining true to form and adding nothing new to them.
Much of the writing continues to be amateur, including several paragraph-long sentences punctuated with a single comma. These sentences and much of his description is filled with useless information in an attempt to sound flowery. There are whole sections of the story that I found myself skipping over because they were entirely unnecessary, such as Eragon discovering a hidden room that has absolutely no significance. So many words, sentences, scenes, and even chapters could have been completely removed without damaging the book in the slightest. At the end, he said the first draft was “much longer”—I shudder to think about what this manuscript was like pre-trimming.
…much of his description is filled with useless information in an attempt to sound flowery.
Once again, there is nothing in the story that isn’t completely predictable. Orik becomes king of the dwarves, Oromis/Glaedr go off to die in battle, Eragon gets a new sword. Paolini also awkwardly reviews old parts of the story even though there is a summary of both books at the beginning. He also seems determined to describe certain objects every single time they are invoked. The most glaring of these is the “belt of Beloth the Wise.” I don’t think there was a single instance where he just said “belt” without tacking on “of Beloth the Wise.”
…there is nothing in the story that isn’t completely predictable.
Finally, the little alternations between Eragon and his dragon mid-scene always seem to come off poorly. They don’t fit into the rest of the scene’s direction, and they always end up with the two of them agreeing on the same course of action that was in progress before the mini-dialogue began.
It baffles me how this “author” is able to keep such a massive following. I don’t think I’ve read a worse series.
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