Inheritance

It was a good conclusion to the series. It was as I had come to expect from Paolini. But now I'm sad that I will never get to read this series again for the first time.

As a fan of the series, the ending was okay. While it fit with the series as a whole, there are some things I wish didn't happen or had happened differently. However, I understand why they did end the way they did.

I finally finished this book. It was very tough to read. If I wasn't already invested in the story and the characters from the previous 3 books, I would never have finished.

Most authors I've read seem to grow in their writing ability and style as they go on.

Paolini doesn't appear to have grown at all. I'm not sure if being so successful at such a young age went to his head or if he never went on to get a formal education in writing techniques or what.

His dialogue is just painful in places. I'm not sure if he's trying to dumb things down to a younger reader level or if he just can't write proper dialogue between adults. The book touches on very adult problems of love and loss. Of war and redemption, but the dialogue feels childish in most places.

I wouldn't recommend this book unless like me you want to see how it ends after already reading the previous books. I also wouldn't recommend this series as a whole to a new reader. There is a lot of better fantasy series out there that you should read instead.

Overall the series could have been much shorter. He goes off on tangents at several points in the 3rd and 4th books that don't seem to move the plot forward. This is often an issue with many fantasy books however.

I find it particularly frustrating here because despite all this extra pointless detail, he seems to leave a lot of things unanswered. I hope he doesn't plan to add a 5th book to the series, and that he simply wanted to leave some things to the reader's imagination. I feel like he could have explained a few things better while still accomplishing that however.

Read on if you want some more specific examples of problems with some light spoilers.

1. Roran is sent off to win some battle in place of another commander for a city that seems to have real point to the plot apart from growing Roran's reputation and to allow for him to be promoted to a Commander in the army.2. There is an over abundance of Dues Ex Machina. In particular Angela showing up and solving huge problems at critical moments. Angela's character is never sufficiently explained as to who she is or how she is able to do what she does. She mostly seems to be a plot device Paolini to write himself out of the corners he puts himself in. Another example is some mystery woman who shows up at a critical moment to save Roran from certain death who presence/background is never touched on.3. The complaint of Paolini's copying from popular works (LotR, Star Wars) is not a new one. I'd forgiven some/most of it as simply popular themes in fiction/fantasy (ie the poor young being thrust into a grand adventure with the mysterious mentor). But his ending is almost identical to the end of LotR. The battle against the great evil won, the heroes move on.

Rating:
3.5 ⭐
Rounded up to 4

Summary:
The conclusion to the Inheritance Cycle of Eragon in which Eragon's long-awaited confrontation with King Galbatorix takes place and the Varden is either successful at their mission of restoring peace to the world or not.

Review:
A decently, fun read. Roran is still one of my favorites. I have no complaints, but I also can't sing the praises of this book. It's the equivalent to a “popcorn movie”–a movie that isn't the greatest, but it's enjoyable and something to watch while enjoying popcorn and checking out for a while. Eragon ages and feels older and wiser. Paolini achieves the send-off-to-the-east moment and it feels appropriate, although it isn't the most original thing ever.
Good. Enjoyable. Lots of combat and description. Magic and villany.

I was very excited for this book! Its the final book in one of my favorite series, and I was ecstatic that I got to finally read it!

The fighting scenes were a bit tough to get through at times (its the same rigamarole as in Brisingr - we are shown every minute detail of how exactly that soldier's facial bones were snapped, it got to be a bit much to read through.) I felt that overall, how things were handled was excellent....


...until I got to the end.


THERE BE SPOILERS HERE, ARRRGGHHH






























First off, Arya becoming a Rider was hella predictable. We all saw that coming.


What was not predictable-

1. The absolute lack of resolution between Arya and Eragon. Yes, omg, they held haaaaands! But it seemed like once Arya reached a certain level of character development, she stopped. She remained the barely likeable character that I experienced in Eldest. Even after all the growing Eragon does (and it shows in Inheritance.) she is still aloof and unlikable.

So I thought to myself, “Well, now that Eragon has matured, maybe she'll give him the time of day and we can stop hearing about her beautiful hair or graceful fighting style.” Nope. Total cockblock.
The Wiki entry states that “Eragon and Arya recognise their true feelings for each other.” Not really. I barely saw anything, except her telling him her true name and them holding hands. Nothing else. It was a HUGE letdown. Its like I followed a rainbow all the way down to... nothing. Paolini could have worked this a bit better, and don't tell me he's incapable of going back to Alagaesia or Arya is incapable of going with. The whole thing was so contrived.


2. The ending, where he sails off into the distance. This is a blatant ripoff of Return of the King's ending, only Tolkien did it better because he wrapped shit up first.


3. The hell with Murtagh and Nasuada? Apparently Paolini has been mastering the beginning of storylines and then tossing them off into the distance, because this shit wasn't wrapped up either.


Overall, a great book, however I felt that all the minor storylines I invested so hard in (Eragon and Arya) were quickly wrapped with barely any resolution, if any. Paolini discussed in the end about returning to Alagaesia, though not with the same characters. Hopefully we can glean some more type of closure, ie Eragon finds a partner, because Jesus he certainly deserves one!

Below is mostly my review posted on Brisingr, Eldest and Eragon with some rehashing/added stuff...

So this is my first time reading Inheritance, (Eragon, Eragon/Eldest, Eragon/Eldest/Brisingr...) this being my first time listening to the audiobook too. 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 The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm: Tales from Alagaësia: Volume 1- Eragon, 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, and how at the time of Brisingr, he had spent a decade with Eragon, 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 actually read a bitter sounding review under Eldest on here where they claim the opposite of what I am saying–ie. that Paolini does not do any of these things delicately/well and all I can say is that I'm genuinely surprised by that reaction. The main complaint I saw was drawing a comparison to Star Wars and almost calling these similarities blatant stealing. IE. “I am your father [Morzan].” And also saying that the reemergence of the twins and Murtagh was stupid/not earned. All I can say is that 1. I am a HUGE SW fan, as you can obviously see in my read books section, and I think that if your basis for disliking this book/series/author is that you think SW is the end-all for original ideas, you're just misguided. I mean right off the bat, just read Dune and see how many things are super close to some of the original SW ideas in A New Hope... 2. I have now read this book three times and each time I have loved the “surprise” of Murtagh coming back. Every single time. Sure, I also thought he was alive, but riding atop a new RED DRAGON? No, that hadn't crossed my younger mind at all. 3. If you dislike reading things that have any kind of similarities at all, I'm sorry to inform you but fantasy is not the genre for you at all. Find me something that doesn't pull strings from Tolkien, Lewis, Herbert, Martin and many others. I don't believe it can be done. Those similarities are the reasons WHY I love these kinds of books and genre. Originality would come at a cost. Probably the cost of that comfortability many look for in fantasy and that wouldn't work for me and many others.

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 started reading these books 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 know we've all seen/heard Paolini say things like “trying to write like Tolkien at his best” and various other stupid and pompous sounding things, but he was young and humility doesn't come easy for everyone. He had great success with these books at an early age, that could certainly do that to your head. And to be honest, it'd have been better for someone else to have said that for him, but I don't really disagree with it. I even call him a mini-Tolkien at the beginning of this review... (but lets be real...Tolkien was always at his “best”)

I will say that I think Paolini is lucky that he had spent so much time working his characters in book two, because honestly without it I would not have given a single f*k about Roran getting married or trying to become a leader. Nor about them having a baby or Eragon healing a hairlip either... It's because of his earlier work and attention to detail that leads fans to desire more information about other characters and the day to day activities. The trouble with the dwarves even borders on getting too dry and he still (in my opinion) reels it in enough, and splits it with action, to save its enjoyability. I feel like he manages the same with the ending of Inheritance. The political magical stuff and the rebuilding isn't my favorite, but he cuts it up with a NEW DRAGON and NEW QUEEN OF THE ELVES? A great win in my opinion. Even though it's a bit of a stretch for this dragon to get a cover when he exists for so little.The world of Alagaesia needs more dragon power. I will say though one thing that rubbed me the wrong way was how Lord Barst was portrayed. Not only was he there simply to be killed my Roran (in my opinion) but he also was described for so much longer, and seemingly stronger, than Galbatorix himself was? I feel like with perhaps even a single Eldunarí he appeared more powerful than I even imagined Eragon to be... the main character, who not only had quite of few of the Eldunarí, but it was purposefully still said DID NOT have enough to outright defeat the Mad King. Barst has so much page-time that we see him kill perhaps hundreds of men, elves, dwarves, Kull, and werecats. Not to mention Islanzadí, a feat that I'm still not sure I believe Eragon should have been capable of? I understand that this was supposed to add the big-bad warrior feel to the climax because Galbatorix had to be defeated by either cunning or magic but still. That was my only major gripe. 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 second time I still don't have any real complaints. I love it and not just for the nostalgic feel, it's amazing.

What an end ! Maybe it's because I read it a long time ago, but I had forgotten like 50% of the book, so I was pretty happy when I (re)discover some chapters. I remember I was quite not satisfied with my first reading, but this one was really good (except the final fight...). And, of course, how I cannot be sad with this end... I really hope we will see Alagaësia again !

4.5, great, end to a series I really grind it through. A little bit more childish in the stuff I usually read in terms I was expecting some Game of Thrones shit where all just kind of don't give you the happy ending here every character you expect to die stay alive and I guess it's refreshing away because we're so used to authors or shows killing off characters to forward the plot, which I think is necessary a lot of time but with this book or the series he never resort that, and it becomes a light reading that wayafter saying all that, though the ending you think would be tied up perfectly with the bow on top and follow the rest of the series with a happy ending, but that was definitely not the case here. I hope to see more from the story because it feels a little unfinished at the end.

Some people hate on these books because it “rips off LOTR”. Well if that's how you feel then you shouldn't like a single classic fantasy novel in existence because every single one is going to take some sort of inspiration from that book. Why? Because it's amazing, it works, and we all love it. That being said this series has some similarities in the first book with LOTR but he progresses from those common tropes to make a pretty great series that is probably the best series you can get into for a new fantasy reader, besides Mistborn.

This book in particular was my favorite of the series for 90% of it. There was so much action, it was just wonderful. However the ending was soooo prolonged and Galbatorix's death was so anti-climactic that I just had to bring it down a star.

He left the series in such a way that he'd be able to pick off where he left it pretty easy so I'm pretty excited for the next book coming out soon!

While I think the third one is my favorite, this is a close second. It is a fitting end to a long journey.

I've read reviews that complain about the series's similarity to Lord of the Rings. I think the comparisons are most obvious in this book, and they are (sometimes annoyingly) apparent.

However, LOTR is one of the founding series of the genre and commonly draws on myth and fairytale. Therefore it has a lot in common with all fantasy. That said, there are some large differences (besides the dragons) between them. The one I appreciate most is how Paolini demonstrates a variety of perspectives throughout the series. Imagine how different LOTR would be if the Orcs, like the Urgals, had lives that mattered as much as humans' lives. There is not such an obvious difference between good and evil.

I have many comments about the end, but overall I get it and appreciate Paolini's choices as an author. I was sad for it to be over. On to the next great book...

My biggest gripe with this book is the ending. If this were not the "last book" in the series, I would avoid a 3 rating, however, to end a series with so much vagueness on the future of so many characters. In the post interview, he did speak about future books around other characters, but _this_ story did not feel complete. Eragon's story does not feel complete. And if it is, what a bitter and lonely ending for all his suffering and accomplishments.