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A review by vogelobre
Eragon. Das Erbe der Macht by Christopher Paolini
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.5
I enjoyed this book decently. Rereading the Eragon books as an adult after first liking and then hating them as a tween/teen, I've found them pretty fun and easy to read, with likeable characters and respectable attempts at diversity considering they were written by a white teen boy in the 2000s. I was pleasantly surprised to see both a WoC PoV character as well as some subversion of common fantasy race tropes. Of course there could have been more of that, and the writing of female characters was often not the best, but still.
I liked Inheritance as a finale to the Eragon saga. I won't say it's the best book in the series, but it certainly had the most on its plate and it tied up the plot pretty neatly. I also liked the more or less open ending. The thing that bothered me the most about the book is the way the main villain was written. He was clearly meant to have a very intimidating and charismatic presence, but in my opinion the writing failed at conveying that. He felt like a third-rate Bond villain to me, which is kind of sad when the other books had been building up to this very threatening, unknowable sort of antagonist. Something that also ties into this is that the author is, in my opinion, not great at writing smack talk or funny/witty dialogue. I can't remember a single 'funny' line in the series that I actually found funny, all of the quips and jokes just lanr somewhere between 'forgettable' and 'embarrassing'. That's the main reason I don't like the character Angela, her dialogue basically only consists of jokes that don't land and paper-thin quirky/mysterious allusions that go nowhere. Sorry, Angela.
This problem extends to the main antagonist as well. He doesn't really have any lines that are meant to be funny, but he says a lot of things that are meant to be threatening, and almost all of those fall flat. I wish he would talk less, it would make him seem much more intimidating.
Apart from that, I found the book very fun and pleasant to read. It doesn't really have any super deep themes apart from 'working together is good' and 'violence is bad, maybe, sometimes'. Its main point seems to be 'dragons are cool', and it very successfully gets that point across. Dragons *are* cool, especially the ones in this series, and dragon-riders are also very cool. I'd recommend this book series to anyone who likes dragons and easy-to-read fantasy books. I like both, and I had a nice time with the Eragon series (despite mostly focusing on the negative stuff in this review. Sorry.)
I liked Inheritance as a finale to the Eragon saga. I won't say it's the best book in the series, but it certainly had the most on its plate and it tied up the plot pretty neatly. I also liked the more or less open ending. The thing that bothered me the most about the book is the way the main villain was written. He was clearly meant to have a very intimidating and charismatic presence, but in my opinion the writing failed at conveying that. He felt like a third-rate Bond villain to me, which is kind of sad when the other books had been building up to this very threatening, unknowable sort of antagonist. Something that also ties into this is that the author is, in my opinion, not great at writing smack talk or funny/witty dialogue. I can't remember a single 'funny' line in the series that I actually found funny, all of the quips and jokes just lanr somewhere between 'forgettable' and 'embarrassing'. That's the main reason I don't like the character Angela, her dialogue basically only consists of jokes that don't land and paper-thin quirky/mysterious allusions that go nowhere. Sorry, Angela.
This problem extends to the main antagonist as well. He doesn't really have any lines that are meant to be funny, but he says a lot of things that are meant to be threatening, and almost all of those fall flat. I wish he would talk less, it would make him seem much more intimidating.
Apart from that, I found the book very fun and pleasant to read. It doesn't really have any super deep themes apart from 'working together is good' and 'violence is bad, maybe, sometimes'. Its main point seems to be 'dragons are cool', and it very successfully gets that point across. Dragons *are* cool, especially the ones in this series, and dragon-riders are also very cool. I'd recommend this book series to anyone who likes dragons and easy-to-read fantasy books. I like both, and I had a nice time with the Eragon series (despite mostly focusing on the negative stuff in this review. Sorry.)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, War, and Violence
Minor: Confinement, Kidnapping, and Body horror
This is a children's fantasy book. It's got some violence and stuff, one scene is pretty disgusting the one with Nasuada being tortured with those maggot things but it's still a children's book. If you're older than 14, you're pretty likely to be able to handle all the violence in it. It's probably less violent than Warrior Cats.