Don’t miss the eagerly anticipated epic new fantasy from Christopher Paolini—
Murtagh,
coming 11.7.23!New magic and new threats take flight in Book Two of the Inheritance Cycle, perfect for fans of Lord of the Rings! This
New York Times
bestselling series has sold over 40 million copies and is an international fantasy sensation. "Christopher Paolini is a true rarity." —
The Washington Post
Darkness falls… despair abounds… evil reigns… Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix. Now Eragon must travel to Ellésmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.Will the king’s dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. . . .
This updated edition of
Eldest
includes:
· A sneak peek of
Murtagh
· One section of a brand-new Alagaësia map by Christopher, with a unique code that will unlock a different piece of exclusive digital content. Collect all 4 books in the Inheritance Cycle to see the full map and unlock all bonus content!· A redesigned cover using the iconic original art
Customer Reviews
Rating Breakdown
★★★★★
60%
(5.9K)
★★★★
25%
(2.5K)
★★★
15%
(1.5K)
★★
7%
(686)
★
-7%
(-686)
Most Helpful Reviews
★★★★★
1.0
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A Derivitave Cluster (Insert Expletive)
Although some have commented on this previously I will try and put my own spin on this...(warning plot spoilers, what little plot there was are below)
1. Because Obi-Wan Kenobi/Brom's died before completing Luke/Eragon's training, he travels to Dagobah/Elven Lands, to complete his training with Master Yoda/Deebag Lord of Elves.
2. Hero trains for awhile in secluded location by last jedi master/dragonrider left.
3. Luke/Eragon gets a vison of his friends in trouble and travels to Cloud City/Battlefield where he meets a dark figure who he battles and loses his lightsabre/dragonsword in the process. The critical all shocking moment is when Darth Vader/Red Dragon Knight reveals that Luke/Eragon I am your father/brother. Of course if you could be blind as a bat reading the book in braile and seen that Murtag was the red dragon rider about a million miles away...so it wasn't much of a revelation.
4. This book is bad, not in the mildly gosh that's several hours of my life I'll never get back but in a jaw dropping, utterly shocked, the world is now dumber for having read this book way. I read a review that mentioned that the editor of this book did a dismal job. He was certainly accurate in that assessment. Abysmally written, unoriginal to a point of plot plagarism, and editing to shock the conscience.
5. I know that Amazon requires you be over the age of 13 to post a review but I have to sincerely believe that no one over the age of 12 could honestly get mild entertainment out of such a sloppy mess as Eldest. It makes me worry to see so many positive reviews of such utter tripe.
6. I have a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature which I earned departmental Honor's in as well as Juris Doctor degree. Not that it makes my point anymore valid or the book any worse. But I would recommend avoiding this book like a leper with a bad case of herpes.
14 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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A book that wants to be more than it is
I will begin this review with an honest admission: I do not like Christopher Paolini, and I enjoy watching him stumble. I find him to be a poor ambassador for fantasy fans, and too self-absorbed to realize his own flaws. Sticking with and writing an entire book IS an impressive feat for a man of his age, though less impressive for a home-schooled one--or at least a home-schooled one as isolated and perhaps friendless as he. Many aspiring writers of like age are often deterred not so much by a lack of will, after all, as having other, better things to do.
But my greatest dislike for Paolini is this: irrespective of the hype, irrespective of the arrogance, he just isn't a very good writer. In Eragon I initially admired his attempt to bring some real language back to a genre that is largely lacking in such necessary prose; but Paolini ultimately is an imitator when it comes to good prose, not the real thing. He desires so badly to use great words to encompass greater thoughts, but reaching for the thesaurus, alas, is not the ultimate answer: complex words often have specific meanings, and without a grasp of the true meaning the thought will be improperly conveyed. I'm reminded of a foreign friend of mine who refers to the "Last March of the Ents" in The Two Towers as the "Last Ent Parade": the translation is right, but the meaning is lost. This is particularly ironic in Paolini's case, who, when asked what advice he would give to aspiring writers, offered: learn the English language, since it's the tool of the craft. Unfortunately, no interviewers have ever asked him how he thinks he can improve, or we might hear the same wisdom.
Paolini's almost at a point where he's too old (particularly for a writer, and a successful one at that) not to have a better grasp of vocabulary. I'm not sure why he hasn't matured--perhaps because he never went to college he never had to learn SAT words? Regardless of the reason, what was merely a questionable problem in Eragon has reached intolerable levels in Eldest. Forgive the crude analogy, but watching Paolini use big words is akin to watching an adult movie where the actor is making love to a woman for the first time: what should be an exhilarating experience ends up only being awkward, and even a little painful, to watch.
The book begins with a bad start. "`The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.' So thought Eragon as he stepped..." The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living? Of course they are. What else would they be? This is a classic Paolini misstep: trying to pass off obvious observations as an unparalleled moment of profundity {eg, "may your swords stay sharp"). Nor does the transition to the next sentence help. I've established a personal truism for fantasy literature: anytime an author uses the phrase "merchants were peddling their wares" to describe a market scene, you know mediocre wordsmithery is in your future. "So thought Character X" falls into the same camp. This first line, in fact, serves as a paragon for Eldest: archaic sentencing that feels hollow rather than profound, coupled with klutzy transitions.
Nor is the content much better. The scene breaks down when Eragon & Friends are suddenly attacked and several important characters killed. I'm confused. Didn't the first book end with an epic battle? Why does the second book open up with a smaller version of the same thing, just with sexier results? Wouldn't it have been more conducive to the story to simply kill these characters at the end of the battle in the first book? I've come up with several explanations to rationalize this clumsy plotting on Paolini's part: (1) he felt compelled to open the book with an "action" sequence; (2) he wanted to ape The Empire Strikes Back (even further) with a "Battle of Hoth"-type sequence; (3) he hadn't planned out the trilogy as well as he thought when he wrote Eragon. I don't know which answer is correct, and I don't particularly care: all I care about is how needless the scene feels.
I could go on with Eldest's flaws, but I will just summarize it thusly: all the problems that the reader experienced in Eragon are only further evident in this book, exacerbated perhaps by the increased length. When I read Eragon I made an honest effort to give Paolini the benefit of the doubt and assert he might blossom into a writer worth following, but this latest contribution makes me less certain.
The "saving" grace of both this book and the entire series is this: for all the poor language and clichéd characters, the overall story IS an enjoyable experience, if you are willing to just shut off your mind and let it take you where it will. Eldest holds its readers to low expectations; but to be fair, it asks that its readers hold it to low expectations in return.
To me the greatest tragedy of Eldest and the Inheritance Trilogy (does this trilogy really have all that much to do with inheritance?) isn't the bad writing or the overhype. It's the legacy that will follow it. The adoring adolescents who heap praise upon this book now will undoubtedly (hopefully?) turn back to the pages of their beloved tome in five, ten, fifteen years and see Eragon for what it really is: not a very good book. And they'll feel the regret of time wasted and fond memories cheated by the reality that only the wisdom of age can reveal. There are some children's books that adults can always enjoy and admire--The Phantom Tollbooth comes to mind as an immediate example. Eldest is not one such book. I encourage Eldest's ardent supporters to return to this book in a few years time with a matured eye and ask themselves this question: is this honestly a book I will encourage my child to read? For me, it won't be.
12 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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Strike Two...
I'm going to keep this review fairly short since it involves recalling something deeply unpleasant.
To preface, let me say that my work requires me to keep up with what's hot amongst young consumers and that I enjoy a good fantasy romp as much as the next reader, but don't limit myself to any one genre if I can help it. I say this to make it clear that I've got no axe to grind.
I wandered through Eragon over the summer and found it tedious, derivative and overall a lightweight diversion. That said, I was willing to give Paolini a second chance and see if he'd advanced as a writer and shown some development. If you are like me in this regard and are contemplating such an action, allow me to save you the trouble.
I can honestly say that Eldest is one of the worst books I've ever read. The story flies off again, Magpie-like, plifering the shiny bits from the reading of your standard teenage boy who likes his Mythology, Sword and Sorcery and Movies. All of this is semidigested and hawked up onto the page again, so that while reading, one is incredulous that someone, somewhere in Knopf didn't start yelling that the young Emperor, while not naked, was playing dress up in his precessesors robes. Those robes are shimmering and radiant, rich and enchanting- but they don't fit Christopher Paolini.
I know that there are a lot of rabid fans who will be dismayed and angry, but this is printed fast food with nothing substantive to offer. Best to go directly to the inspiration, then to waste time on this; there's a lot better fantasy literature out there for younger readers then this derivative twaddle.
10 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Good Sophmore Effort
Like Eragon, this is also an entertaining read and a page turner. I think Paolini did a fine job, especially since the middle book of a trilogy can be tough. Yes, as countless other posts note, you can pick out elements of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in the plot lines. So what, you can find the elements from The Seven Samurai in the The Magnificent Seven, that does not diminish either work. The one thing I did notice is that Paolini seemed to break out the thesarus a bit too often. There were times when his word choice seemed forced and odd, which jarred me out of the narrative.
9 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Good Sophmore Effort
Like Eragon, this is also an entertaining read and a page turner. I think Paolini did a fine job, especially since the middle book of a trilogy can be tough. Yes, as countless other posts note, you can pick out elements of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in the plot lines. So what, you can find the elements from The Seven Samurai in the The Magnificent Seven, that does not diminish either work. The one thing I did notice is that Paolini seemed to break out the thesarus a bit too often. There were times when his word choice seemed forced and odd, which jarred me out of the narrative.
9 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Read this one first and skip the tedium of "Eragon"
"Eldest" is more worth reading than "Eragon", and my unorthodox suggestion is for you to skip "Eragon" and go right to "Eldest" - the summary of Eragon at the beginning of Eldest is much better than wading through the book itself, and you can always go back later and read it to find out about the Brom character and the hatching of Saphira if you are still interested by the end of "Eldest".
In the second installment of the Inheritance trilogy, the author continues with his absurd lionizing of the character of Eragon, who is now dabbling in the politics of Varda and the Dwarves in addition to everything else he has done. We are once again smothered with vocabulary rather than a nicely crafted writing style, and a too much time is spent on describing furnishings and scenery that could be covered with a few deft phrases. To top this off, the author's blatant theft of Gondor in describing a 7-tiered, gated white city built into a mountain is just plain shameful, and I nearly put the book down for good at that point.
After the initial rambling, the storyline splits to cover both Eragon and the plight of his cousin Roran, who is back in Carvahall. This makes for more interesting reading. About halfway through the book, the writing style flat out changes to something far more digestible as Eragon finally reaches the realm of the elves and is firmly put in his place. This sudden change in writing gives the impression that the author walked away from the manuscript for a year or two and then came back to it; his descriptions are far less flowery and he is now more concerned with moving the story along.
After a rushed period of intensive training with the elves, Eragon undergoes a very convenient transformation and returns to Varda to help fight a war. Once he leaves the elves, the author plunges back into his former habit of using vocabulary for the sake of using it, rather than creating art with it. He resumes telling us how great and powerful Eragon is rather than devising a means for the character to prove it and grow into it, and is once again lifting ideas from other authors (Urgals - read: Uruk-hai with horns and a conscience) rather than creating anything original. A rather generic battle occurs with a few predictable outcomes, and this brings the second book to a close.
After two books and a thousand pages, I don't find anything particularly worthy about Eragon, and have formed no attachment to him. Every time you think he might be maturing just a little, he does something to dispel that notion. As heroes go, he's pretty forgettable, and no other character in the story takes on a sufficient life of his/her own, except for perhaps Oromis and Murtagh. Once again - see if the library has a copy before you invest in one.
I bought the hardcovers of "Eragon" and "Eldest" together on a special deal, and quite frankly there were times when the only reason I kept reading was because I had paid good money for them. I do not plan to keep them, and I'm not going to bother reading the third book unless somebody drops a free copy into my lap.
8 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Dull, Derivative, Didactic
In Eldest, Paolini carries over all his mistakes with Eragon. The stealing from LOTR and Star Wars is more blatant than before. The needless details and purple prose are still there. The dialogue and characters are dryer than ever.
In addition to these flaws, Paolini has added in another literary no-no. Preachiness. Though we saw hints of his amateur philosophy in Eragon, it's ten times worse in Eldest. He uses Oromis as a soapbox to inject random sermons on atheism and vegetarianism into his story. I have no problem with sermons in fiction if they are relevant to themes well-woven into the plot. Yet atheism, religion, and vegetarianism seem irrelevant to Eragon's fight with Galbatorix. So why are they there?
The worst part is that Eldest's religious debates are frightfully immature. Neither side is well articulated. Oromis is a superficial question-dodger (which embarrasses me as an atheist). The religious characters are stereotypical screaming, spitting, straw men (that last alliterative bit surpasses all Paolini's poetic ability by the way). I can only pray (pun intended) that Paolini will give up this sad adolescent attempt at depth.
6 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Derivative and disappointing.
This book is just awful. I read the first one with the horrified fascination that makes people rubberneck at a traffic accident. Paolini has gotten recognition for writing a novel at such a young age, and deserves some credit for that. But Eragon was derivative, amateur and outright plagiaristic at times.
Eldest could have been the chance for Paolini to redeem himself. There was enough constructive criticism of the first book that he could have made this very good. Unfortunately he seems to have gone the other direction: the language is even more stilted and overly formal. The plot twists are not so much twists as utterly conventional plots already done to death in fantasy novels, telegraphed chapters in advance. The structure is clumsy and in dire need of editing. The characters are wooden and uninteresting. The deep philosophical discussions are forced and amateurish. The anachronisms and "clever" ideas are painful. (hot and cold running water and alarm clocks? At the top of a tree in the middle of a forest? What?) The logical inconsistencies are glaring in parts and kill the suspension of disbelief. For example, Oromis lectures Eragon about never talking of exterminating whole races because no race is entirely evil, and then not ten pages later describes how the elves (himself included) attempted to exterminate the entirety of the Razac but were sadly unsuccessful.
The whole book reads like a parody of the worst of overly-serious pretentious fantasy fan fiction. The fact that this is not in fact a parody but a completely serious attempt at literature is almost difficult to believe. Paolini cheapens the entire fantasy genre with this book. People will see the success of this series, decide to give it a read, and it will cement every embarrassing stereotype that has ever been applied to the "Fantasy" section of the bookstore.
If people like these books, that is their right. In fact, to a younger reader who has not seen Star Wars or read Anne McCaffrey or Tolkien, they're probably pretty cool. But there are so many books out there that are better-written, more original, and less pretentious that these can be safely passed over without missing anything.
5 people found this helpful
★★★★★
1.0
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I am speechless.
Absolutely ridiculous. I cannot imagine how such a cliched and boring pile of nonsense was even published. After reading the disappointing Eragon, I had hoped that the author's sadly misguided style would have improved, but I was terribly mistaken. This is an insult to Tolkien (which is blatanly ripped off of in both books) and every other notable book in the fantasy genre. The dialogue is not natural. It is constructed and awkward. The plot and events have been done a million times over (and much better executed, too). The characters are terribly cliche, and I feel no sympathy for them. The villain is boring and predictable, as are the heroes. The creatures show little imagination, and are not very well devised. The only redeeming quality about this book is the front cover art. Unfortunately, that's not enough to warrant a buy from me. In short, just don't touch this book. I'm sure whatever story you can imagine in your mind will be loads better than the real thing.
5 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Solid read!
I didn't know what to expect after reading some of the other reviews, but the 2nd book did not disappoint me. It was an entertaining read! I look forward to number 3.
