[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions_content.php on line 1014: Undefined array key 3 [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) [phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions.php on line 4130: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at [ROOT]/includes/functions.php:3009) Christopher Paolini - Eragon - TBD {unrated} - The Internet Book Database of Fiction
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MMK.. So im new at this. The Book is really good. However, I dont like how it ened. I know that there's supposed to be a next book comming, but to me it just felt like nothing was really sloved or resolved.
Eragon seemed way to trusting. I mean he wasn't neairly as paranoid as he should have been towards some charactors. Other charactors it he was way too worried about... I mean sereiously Eragon had known Brom since he was a kid but was very untrusting with him. Then Murtagh shows up out of no where and wants to come along and Eragon is not at all worried or suspicios of this. Okay well thats all... <---- I think thats a cool looking bannah.. if I was one I'd sure look like that.
im sorry but ive only gotten a quater of the way through but from waht i ve read so far, i have really enjoyed this book, amazing that he was only, what 15 when he wrote it? thats really inspirational (even if his parents were publishers)
I thought this book was excellent. Even without considering the author is a kid!!!! A kid!!!! ARG!!!!! I'm so jealous of his talent that I could spontaneously combust.
Regarding your comments on the main character. Yeah, I see your point that Eragon trusted some and not others. But put yourself in his place. Here's this windy old fossil that's been telling stories in your town since you were in diapers. Suddenly, he knows all kinds of stuff that you didn't know existed and he's strong and skilled enough to beat the hell out of you every night. Even though you are 15 and he is, what, seventy or so (or he looks seventy or so...we later find out he's hundreds of years old).
Murtagh (my favorite character, by the way) comes along--he's another kid. Kids always trust other kids more than they trust adults. He saves them from the evil lisping Razack and takes care of them. I would trust him too--especially if my mentor was near death and I was so badly wounded that I couldn't breathe without crying.
My biggest beef with the ending was that it occured. I wanted to know more. And I wanted to know it NOW. Patience is not my strong point.
I am a poor, wayfaring stranger
Wandering through this world of woe
But there's no sickness, no fear or danger
In that bright land
To which I go
There is an order of knights with magic swords and powers to match them. They defend law and order and keep the peace. Then a powerful evil knight corrupts a young and promising member of the order, and together they exterminate the magic knights.
years later, a young man goes off into the wild, and when he comes home, the empire's soldiers have killed his aunt and uncle, whom he lives with. Then, the village elder takes him aside, gives him a magic sword like the knights use, and they leave to fight the empire. They befriend a rebellious criminal and go off to rescue a pretty young woman from the clutches of the empire. along the way the elder/trainer-of-the-last-knight gives his life to defend the young man, whos magic powers such as telekinesis and mind control are just developing. the story goes on for a while, and then the young knight gets severely wounded by one of the emperor's chief subordinates.
sound like star wars? well it's not, it's just the storyline that paolini adopted for his first book. It is well written, but the blatant theft of plot was disturbing. I greatly preferred the second book, if only because paolini actually pulled himself away from the Luke skywalker theme.
Good comparison, Mooseyjoe. I guess I hadn't really noticed the similarties. When you put it that way, I do see how one could compare the plotline to Star Wars. I wouldn't say that the plot is necessarily blatantly stolen, but I can see that Paolini may have consciously or unconsciously been influnced by Star Wars. Then again, how many other examples of someone in this day and age having been influenced by the Star Wars culture can we find if we truly look?
Oh, and welcome to the boards. Hope you like this place as much as the Reaper Forum.
I would say that 'Eragon' and then 'Eldest' are both highly derivative. Inspired by Star Wars and of course, Prof. J. R. R. Tolkien and to an extent even J.K. Rowling... The story gives u a feeling of deja vu if you have read/seen any of the above mentioned books/movies. Paolini's got talent...but he's dug too deep into the existing fantasy database... and somewhere you feel that his lead characters are too perfect (the Mary Sue / always whining types) and the rest of his characters are not developed enough! The first book is relatively immature but to give him his due, he has matured with Eldest... but wish he had checked his language or rather use of grammar and cliche phrases a bit more carefully! From 'Eldest' I realized that bowling was a game played in ancient Alagaesia...how else could you refer to the phrase 'fall like nine-pins'!
When life hands you a lemon, sell it to a health freak and get yourself a candy bar!
The archetype of the "fatherless child on a quest" goes back much farther than Tolkien - think of Telemechus searching for Odysseus (ancient Greece), or Galahad and the Holy Grail (dark age Britain).
Paolini (and Lucas, Rowling and Tolkien) merely adapted what has always been a very common literary theme.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." -- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
When I was in Japan, I picked up the translation of the first book, and after the prologue I threw the book down in disgust for such trite use of language—in a language that isn't my first one!
Ever since I started equating correlation with causality, violent crime has fallen 58%.
laurie wrote:The archetype of the "fatherless child on a quest" goes back much farther than Tolkien - think of Telemechus searching for Odysseus (ancient Greece), or Galahad and the Holy Grail (dark age Britain).
Paolini (and Lucas, Rowling and Tolkien) merely adapted what has always been a very common literary theme.
Precisely ... you can add to that list Jordan (wasn't Rand swept away to become the 'savior' and learn's more about his 'real' past in every book?), Goodkind (Richard discovers his real roots after being chased from his home on some crazy quest). Much of fantasy is the same plot line with the characters changed ... and we like it any way. Lucas has long admited his influences and that the story isn't his, just his version.
That said I found this book only after my 12 (now 13) year old daughter read it. She loved it and I see why. I found both book very entertaining. Yes there are points where you can clearly see that a teenager wrote it, but - for me - that makes it all the better. He tells a very good and entertaining story and he isn't trying to be Charles Dickens (yet). His prose will certainly grow as he does ... I just hope he doesn't lose he appeal to young readers as it does.
My kids are all excited about the movie - I'm hoping to take them to it Friday when it opens.
I was really looking forward to this movie ... and very disappointed in the result. The movie felt rushed which left the characters - who were not deeply developed in the book, but excusable - almost completely void of personality and depth. They skipped things that seem to be absolutely critical in the second book's development and changed things that also greatly affect the second book. The SFX were good and the concept was explained pretty well, but I was left thinking 'where did the story go'. I thought perhaps it was just because I had read the book and looked forward to it, but I've heard the same comments from others that have not yet read the story and still felt like there were parts and pieces missing or glossed over.
The book plays - arguably very lightly - in an arena with stories like LOTR and Star Wars, etc. The film should have either delivered that epic level quality or completely downgraded to 'kids fare' rather than the lightweight glossing-over that was produced. The battle at the end was supposed to be huge ... world changing ... and
... they completely changed it. Most likely because they left out so many critical details leading up to it. So instead of Murtong (sp?) persuing the badguys and disappearing at the end so he can reappear as the long lost brother, we see him as a fellow hero of the battle. How drastically will that change a subsequent film - it's as big a change as Jurasic Park 2 was from the second book and that was a disaster.
They left out so much of the magic pieces between Eragon and Saph ... and that's the real 'love story' part of the book. His blessing\curse of the little girl, etc. that eventually leads to him going to the elves for training - also eliminated.
And the final battle with the breaking of the crystal, the interaction with the dwarf tribes ... none of it makes it into the movie. This movie felt more like the way my 5 year old son would have described a story he heard to me than a screenplay based on a bestselling book.
I am very disappointed. I've been a supporter of CP's even amongst the staunchest critisms about his shallow character development. The movie lost what little of that there was and considering all the adults involved in the screen play and production of a movie I don't think you can blame that on a kid. This was an obvious play to gain some easy $$ off the thousands of kids that have read and loved the books and I think the movie let them all down. The ending obviously set one up for a sequel which would be - IMHO - a crime if its anything like the first one.
Apologies in advance for a very uncharacteristicly negative post, but I think CP's supporters deserved far better than this.
I saw the movie before I read this. My wife actualy picked it up at Target off clearance for 1.52. Glad she did though. I thought the movie was terrible, but I really enjoyed the book.
Ooogh. No offense to any one here, but I thought that both books were written in a way that made reading them seem like plodding through mud; Eragon was an unsympathetic and unrealistic character, Saphira was woefully underdeveloped, and you couldn't see the Paolini for all the Tolkien.
Other than that, I'd like to say that I don't blame Paolini for writing this, as other people of my viewpoint do - merely the people who coddled his creativity and bloated his ego. Sometimes, you just need some tough love and a fat red pen.
<---- I think thats a cool looking bannah.. if I was one I'd sure look like that.
spontaneously combust.
