Eragon

on reread, probably 15+ years later, still an excellent read.
unsure how much nostalgia glasses played into this rating, as this was one of my favorite books throughout late elementary, middle, and early high school, and I reread it dozens (not exaggerating) of times. it was one of my first fantasy books, and for that it will always have a special place in my heart.
there were definitely some quirks I noticed on reread that I never noticed when I was younger - we'll call them artifacts of being written by a young author for a young audience. nothing major/immersion breaking, just goofy little bits.

This was my second time reading this book, and I remember that I loved this book the first time through. Now, however, after having read quite a few master-class books (Patrick Rothfuss comes to mind), I'm forced to downgrade my rating and say that Eragon is merely a good book. An easy, fast read - it nevers gets boring, and the characters and mostly believable. However, Paolini steals ideas from other books in the genre willy-nilly, to the point that there's very little in here that's original. To his credit, all the concepts mesh together really well, and make for a great read! Three stars!

I wasn't a huge fan. Part of what I love about fantasy is how you can delve into a whole new world, governed by a completely different set of rules than ours. However, I felt the characters were shallow, the dialogue felt forced, and the magic system seemed silly to me. I never was able to truly get lost in this book's world, and though it was an easy read, had a hard time investing in it and finishing it quickly because of that inability to be truly convinced of this place. I will not read the rest of the series.

it started out great and gradually got worse. half way through when ‘the big thing' happens it started to go downhill. i grew very tired of eragon's cringy longings constantly being mentioned. i get he's a horny teen but keep it in your pants, son. picks up again once ‘a destination is reached' but didn't keep me interested for long.
i feel like it's mostly the accent of the narrator but murtagh best boy i will finish this series for him alone, what a babe.

Having finally noticed that the Paolini has completed the series, after almost a decade, I decided to pick up Eragon again so I could refresh my memory of the names and events of the first two books. As a brief synopsis, Eragon is a fifteen year old boy living in a remote village. Upon discovering a dragon egg in the woods, he hatches it and becomes a new Dragon Rider, with the goal of fighting against the emperor Galbatorix's rule. He journeys away from the Empire to the hideout of the rebel Varden group, in search of sanctuary while he trains in arms and magic.It seems to me that the prevailing opinion among the more “refined” reviewers here is that Eragon is a rehash of old fantasy tropes. Although I agree that the idea of a young hero discovering a magic power/object and fighting an evil ruler is hardly original, I don't think this detracts from the enjoyment of the story itself. My favourite part of Eragon is probably the magic system. In Eragon, magic is tied to an “ancient language”, which describes things as they are - by saying something, it can be made so. The catch is that all magic requires the same effort as the actual task. Paolini has thus created a flexible yet structured magical system, which (I think) is a also a fairly original concept. The drawback is that unlike in, say, Mistborn, magical battles are less than exciting, amounting to rapid talking and thinking.The blurb mentioned that Paolini began the book at fifteen, and it shows: the writing is not often subtle and seems tailored at the young adult reader. He makes an effort at creating vivid landscapes, but too often we lose out on significant details - for example, the fact that Ajihad is black is mentioned only once and is quite easy to miss, giving a very different mental image of him and his daughter. Other problems include the fact that I still have yet to get a good idea of what Farthen Dur looks like: Paolini has a habit of skipping over gaps of space and time as people tend to “travel for three days” and appear elsewhere. Maps help alleviate this, but it still feels a little discontinuous.Nevertheless, I would still recommend reading Eragon, especially as a primer to some fantasy as it isn't a particularly taxing text. I will however be interested to see how the rest of the series goes. 3/5 for promising storyline but slightly confusing presentation.

Written by a teenager, it seems this book is good for a middle school audience but isn't up to par with other YA novels. It contains loads of exposition, all the characters sound the same, and we are constantly told how great Eragon is without really seeing it for ourselves. Impressive that a sixteen year old wrote it but I don't see myself reading the other installments of the series.

Updated Review 2023:
This book is enjoyable and fun. It is apparent that this book takes a lot of inspiration from other works in fantasy (Tolkien and Le Guin's works to name the two that I noticed most), however, it doesn't mean that the book is bad. Is this book a work of genius from a young author like I once thought it was when I was young? No. I wouldn't say so. However, was it published by a young author? Yes. Was it successful in finding an audience and a people that enjoy it enough for the book to be a success? Yes.

A bit slow at times, but ultimately a good book. I must have been in a fog or something when I wrote my 2017 review, as I didn't find it difficult to imagine the world that Paolini created this go around. Great stuff and will definitely read the next books and re-read this series from time to time over the years.

2017 Review:
The only complaint I have is, sometimes, I have a hard time envisioning the world that Paolini created. The description of things is difficult to understand sometimes. Other than that, it is a great book.

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.

This book has mixed reviews online, ranging from 1/5 stars to 5/5. I suppose it's one of those ‘you either love it or you hate it' scenarios.

Enjoyable read for most fantasy fans, although tailored more towards young adults. However, the author himself was a teenager when he published this so that could very likely account for that.

Downsides: Contains pretty much every fantasy cliché ever, and the entire plot contains one too many similarities to Lord of the Rings. Nevertheless I (mostly) enjoyed it.

The author's own summary of the book is: “Eragon is an archetypal hero story, filled with exciting action, dangerous villains, and fantastic locations. There are dragons and elves, sword fights and unexpected revelations, and of course, a beautiful maiden who's more than capable of taking care of herself.”

Eragon's mother left Eragon with family and disappeared, never to return and no one knows who his father is. One day Eragon locates a pretty stone and hasn't got a clue what it is but takes it with him in the hopes that he can sell it, but no one wants to buy it because it came out of ‘The Spire' (some dangerous place with lotsa mountains). Later it turns out that the pretty stone is a dragon egg. He raises the dragon (Saphira) and they develop a deep connection to each other, to the point that they can communicate telepathically.

Arguably the best character in this book is Murtagh the wise/mysterious old man who travels with Eragon and Saphira and offers traning/advice, but it's not much of a competition as the character development throughout the entire book for all characters is minimal. I remember very little about who the characters are, just what they did.

Their enemies were fairly interesting I suppose, they were one of my favourite parts of the book. Then again, Eragon always escaped unscathed from fighting them which is a little disappointing to be honest. I wanted to see him struggle a bit, it would have created at least a little character development.

Oh, he also at some point rescues an Elf (princess? I want to say she's a princess but don't completely remember if she was) from a dungeon because he could see her in his dreams.

I mostly enjoyed the book, but I doubt I'll continue with the series or watch the film (which from reviews I've read is supposed to be terrible anyway).

If you enjoy fantasy for fantasy's sake then you will probably enjoy this. If you tend to be more critical of what you read then this might not be the book for you.

I would recommend this book for: adolescents/young adults that are fans of fantasy/magic/dragons etc. No-one who understands (and loathes) what a Mary Sue/Marty Stu is.

P.s. this review was written in 5 minutes and has not been edited. Apologies for any and all mistakes wherein.

I enjoyed it when I was younger and attempted to go back and found myself bored with the cliches. If this is your first fantasy ever and you're in middle school, which is when I read this tome, then it'll be a good stepping stone to the magical world of 1000 page behemoth novels about sword and sorcery. If you're an adult I honestly suggest skipping it and just reading Brandon Sanderson or Bryan Weeks.

I first read this series when I was in secondary school, a couple of friends and myself read the first two books pretty quickly and loved them. I think my fourteenth birthday party was watching the movie with those friends (we almost universally hated it) and I never got round to finishing the third book. At this point, there are four books in the series and a set of short stories due to be published. It's been around ten years since I read the series and I never finsihed it, so I decided I would begin a re-read to finally catch up.

Wow, my memory was exaggerating how good this first book was. I want to stress that the author wrote this book around the age I was when I read it, and I do feel that his age should be taken into account. Eragon as a book has not been fleshed out, and a lot of the story felt bare. There where time skips to get to the next plot relevant moment, and a lack of development in the setting or characters. Another reviewer pointed out the heavy influnces of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which I can definately agree with. I would also like to highlight the audiobook, which is how I read it. The audiobook probably ruined a large chunk of my enjoyment as the narrator gave Saphira an inexplicable voice and made a small portion of the characters Welsh?? I would not reccomenf the audiobook.

I think the series gets better in the later books, and I will report back with reviews as I intend on finally finishing this series.

A book I've had for ages, but never got around to reading it. A fantasy tale very similar to Lord of the Rings, but not as complicated. At least that is the impression I got from reading this book - the first in the series. I like fantasies and world-building, but prefer more easy to read books like Harry Potter. Even while the story was interesting. I had to push myself to finish the book. I had the same experience with Lord of the Rings too, but I do like the story of Eragon. It's quite interesting. I however, don't think that I'll be completing the series this time. 

I'm the only person in the world who hasn't read this book so there is no point in talking about the plot but I'll just say that I loved this story so much. I don't see why people think it's too juvenile when it's no more juvenile than any other YA book. I went into this not knowing anything about it. I thought Eragon was the name of the dragon and I thought it was just a boy and his dragon with a human world. Didn't know it had a LOTR feel with mythical creatures! I was thinking that it's going to be good but only if I was 12, boy was I wrong.