Over a month ago, my boss at work, who knows I love reading, plopped the library’s copy of Eragon down on the desk I was sitting at. “You said you really enjoy fantasy, I read this, and I’d love to have your opinion on it.” Well, the book still isn’t finished – and I’m afraid to say, it’s not going to be. I’ve expressed before how much I dislike abandoning a book half-way through, and I really tried to stick with Eragon, but it’s just… not good. No, that’s being kind; it’s bad. I know, I know – the fellow wrote it when he was 15. I know that. But the fact is, there’s a reason not many books by 15 year old kids are published: they aren’t good enough to be sent to press!
When I first started reading it, I thought it was decent – it was no “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”, but it wasn’t atrocious, either. But the more I read, the more bored I became – I felt like I could see through the 300 pages between me and the ending, right to the ending. There was no suspense, no intrigue, no interestingness. Young boy finds dragon egg; dragon egg hatches, dragon chooses boy; bad guys come and level boy’s home; mysterious old bearded man takes young boy under wing and starts training him, while hiding his real identity for no good reason. Yes, yes, and in the end, the young boy grows up a bit and wins a huge battle against the evil King of the Empire, right, while helping the rebels? Well, yes, actually, that’s exactly right (I cheated and read the plot summary at Wikipedia after throwing in the towel.)
I knew as I read through it that much of it was stuff lifted straight from other books, but I didn’t realize how much near-outright theft had taken place until I explored some of the amazon.com reviews. Paolini stole (admittedly, probably unintentionally) from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Pern, and other stuff to put together his work. His heavy borrowing from other works definitely shows, with the story (the half of it I plowed through, anyway) feeling extremely generic.
As many of the amazon.com reviewers remarked, hopefully Paolini’s parents self-publishing his book for him (before a big publisher picked it up) hasn’t led to an over-inflated ego. His huge commercial success might have already led to him thinking he wrote something truly great – which he didn’t. The book is mediocre at best, extremely bad at worst, not to mention full of borderline plagiarism (just look at the names!). I hope he reads the criticism and takes it to heart; he’s got a long way to go before he’s a good writer.
Now that I’ve tossed Eragon aside, I’ve moved on to The Crow Road by Iain Banks, which Cas sent to me as a gift. I’m only about 30 pages into it, but so far, it’s excellent. It’s got a feel to it I’ve not encountered before in a book, and I’m digging the Scottish bent it has.
A friend of mine saw the movie and had just one thing to say: “This kid has read Lord of the Rings too many times”
I know I’ll never read the book or see the movie if I can avoid it.
Zhayena: Yeah, there are a ton of names in Eragon that are simply too close to stuff from Middle Earth. Heck, Eragon / Aragorn?
I’ve not seen the movie, but I’ve an older niece who saw it, and she said it was horrible.
It’s one thing to be inspired, but..
Sometimes I do write things that when I take a closer look I see that ‘okay, this guy is Gandalv” or ‘okay, if I translate this sentence to English it turns to The force is strong in this one’, and I throw that away and write something else.
I’ve never read Eragon and, to be fair, have no desire to (or watch the movie for that matter). I used to work with someone who adored both the book and the movie. She’d never read Tolkein, McCaffrey or LeGuin in her life…
And yay! You’ve started Crow Road. I was wondering what you were thinking of that. Can’t wait for a full review.
cas: you should give this person LoTR, and say something like “This is the real thing”.
Zhayena: Yeah, I’ve done similar things. I don’t write much fiction at all, but once I had the idea of writing some big epic fantasy… thing. I wrote 15 pages or so, and when I read it, I felt like I was reading Lord of the Rings or some other big-time fantasy with the names swapped out. I scrapped it.
Cas: I suppose if it was someone’s first fantasy book, I could see how you might like it. The writing still wasn’t that great, but if I hadn’t read other fantasy before, the story would have been okay. It’s just when you go to Eragon after having read a lot of fantasy that you’re blasted in the face with, “whoa, rip off!”
I’m about 80 pages into Crow Road, and loving it. I’m not really sure where the main plot’s going yet, but I’m loving all of the Scottish stuff. Reading dialogues with accents is great fun; a couple of times I really had to read it (and reread it) out loud to get it.
Also, granny blowing up in the crematorium.. heh. That was hilarious.
Zhayena X2: Indeed. In a similar vein, I’ve often felt compelled to hurl a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring at people who talk about the movie as if the tale didn’t exist until it hit the big screen. Think the movies are good? Try the books!
I think almost everyone trying to write a fantasynovell for the first time ending up like LotR, – this is the book we love and we think that writing something similar would give the same great story.
I found the very first draft of one of my unfinished tales, and “oh, there’s Gandalf and Aragorn, and that one acts like Frodo” and even Obi-Wan was there. Just terrible.
One thing to bear in mind with Banks (the straight fiction, not the sci-fi he also writes, which is also very good) is it’s not all about the plot. Arguably more important is the journeys that the characters take along the way, cliched though that sounds… Just sit back and enjoy the ride
But yeah, the exploding granny is what hooked me into the book in the first place!
Zhayena: Yep, agreed. After reading Lord of the Rings a few times, I had a huge urge to write my own epic fantasy – but considering how many epic fantasies there are published, it seems lots of folks feel the same. Problem is, not everyone can write a (good) one.
Cas: I’m starting to get a feel for what you’re talking about. I don’t really see where the main plot (if there is one) is going, but I’m enjoying going through Prentice’s and his family’s experiences. And again, absolutely loving the Scottish-ness that’s pouring out of the book.