Eragon

So this is my fourth time reading Eragon, (Eragon, Eragon/Eldest, Eragon/Eldest/Brisingr...) this being my first time listening to the audiobook. To put it simply, Gerard Doyle is fantastic. His character voices and narration fit perfectly, and I loved the job he did. I'm actually going to continue on with Eldest now because he does them all.

I obviously fell off for some years seeing that Inheritance was released 9 years ago, but what can you do...

I'm sure there's a hundred reviews on here talking about how this all started when Paolini was fifteen so I'll just say–WOW.

He takes so many things from others (in terms of influence) and handles them all so delicately that he created this wonderful, lush, dense lore that continues to grow throughout the rest of the novels. He was like a mini-Tolkien with his languages and flushed out geographic ideas. He created the Urgals and Kull instead of just recycling the typical Orcs and Uruk-hai. I found multiple points of similarity between Martin's ‘Game of Thrones' dragons and Paolini's, and yet past those he once again branched off and created his own world and lore for them in a refreshing way. I think the training and wiseness from Brom most similarly matches the ideas of Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker, including the necessary death of a mentor/father figure that thus propels the main character towards greatness. I suppose you could also easily argue that it is also like Gandalf/Frodo, however I think it's a harder argument to make that Frodo actually grew based off lessons from a knowledgable mentor (HE IS A HERO, JUST A DIFFERENT KIND!). Or, you could also point out Harry/Dumbledore–I'm sure we've all seen the memes about needing an old man mentor and a young hero to make a successful series–even though Dumbledore hid questionable important details from Harry, he still fulfilled that role.

I'm sure there are also countless ideas and influences that he drew from the million and one dragon rider series that exist in this world. However, I first read this book in the sixth grade, so as an eleven year old I hadn't much experience elsewhere, and afterwards this was more my basis for that kind of story than any other.

I understand that his writing style, and seemingly his incessant need to write bible length books, is not for everyone, but this has been a 5*/100% novel since the first time I read it. Now after finishing it for my fourth time I really still don't have any complaints. I love it and not just for the nostalgic feel, it's amazing.