The Inheritance Trilogy (Eragon; Eldest; ?)

[incognito]

I hate this book. There, I said it! And I'm not even a LotR or Star Wars fan; I couldn't care less about the supposed plagiarism (just sayin', since this seems to be why most people hate the book).

No, I hate this book because the writing is painful, the main characters would register off the charts on the Mary Sue litmus test, and Paolini shoves his views down the reader's throat*.

And, as petty and shallow as this sounds, Paolini's voice (not what he says, just his voice) makes me want to smack him. There's just something so...smug about it.

* It did not come as a shock when Paolini admitted in an interview that he is a vegetarian (but he still eats fish). And I will eat my hat if it turns out that Paolini is not an agnostic or an atheist. Some fans say that Paolini shouldn't be criticized for this because all authors put their own views into their work (such as C.S. Lewis and the Narnia chronicles). Butttt...I maintain that the two cannot be compared. Narnia is basically a Christian allegory; the Inheritance Trilogy isn't an atheist allegory (I'm assuming). And maybe authors do pepper their own views into their stories, but Paolini does it with all the subtlety of a blunt force instrument.

To go off on a tangent, Paolini's fanboys and anti-fans both annoy me. I'm part of an anti-fan community, but the people there get immediately defensive if you say anything even remotely positive (and heck, in the examples I'm thinking of, I wasn't even defending the books themselves...). *sigh*

[thingamajig]

I read the first one, and it's a stinky pile of lazy, cookie-cutter, trite doo-doo.

[thecupcakekid]

Wasn't this written by like, a 13 year old? That might explain why it blows.

[incognito]

No, he *started* writing it at fifteen...I know this because in every interview/article I've read, he has to bring up that he started writing it after he graduated! High school! At fifteen! Years old! But I don't think he finished it until he was around seventeen or eighteen...

[laconicchick]

Seriously, who didn't start writing a novel at age 15? My boyfriend has been working on the chronicles of his D&D character since he was a bit younger than that, I think. (He only graduated at 16, though. Slacker!) I started a novel when I was in Grade 5... maybe I should see if I can get that published! *eye roll*

I only know about this book because my mother works in an elementary school library. I think she's said it's popular with the kids, but I don't believe she's read it, as she is not a fantasy/sci-fi fan. (She hasn't read Harry Potter either.)

[thingamajig]

Plus, I got the impression that he wrote a novel with these characters in it at that age, but what actually got published was the result of a lot of polishing by various people, from his parents to his editors and everyone in between. If a grown man had submitted the manuscript that this kid submitted, it would never have seen the light of day because they couldn't have used the gimmick of "written by a teenager!" to sell it.

[emersende]

I looked up Eragon on Amazon and found this review:

Three years?, April 18, 2006
A Kid's Review
Eragon's an okay book. I don't like how overly descriptive it is, but it's got a good storyline.

But, why are people so impressed that this guy wrote it when he was fifteen and finished and edited it in three years? I'm 15, and I'm homeschooled...I've written two novels; one complete and one incomplete (I hate it too much to finish it).

The complete novel took me two months to plan and write, and one month to edit. It was over 650 pages (just under 700). Sorry, but I don't think it should take three years to write a novel.

Reading that makes me want to slap someone. I can't imagine what they'd think of the fact that Fluabert took a whopping FIVE years, often seven hours a day, to write Madame Bovary.

As for the books themselves, I've never had any urge to read them and nothing I've found out about them has given me any interest in them. The whole "written by a fifteen-year-old!" thing seemed like a big sign that it wasn't going to be very good. (No offense to fifteen-year-olds, but I've written since I could draw letters and most of my high-school stuff wasn't very good.)