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Eragon, by Christopher Piolini |
To the scores:
It wasn't bad, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. As I said in the blog entries below, it's a great novel for a teenager. It's also very derivative of numerous other fantasy series, and the relatively low scores I gave the plot and concept are simply that because I felt I'd seen every character and plot even in other books. As the author himself had to admit, it's not a very original work, and the characters are basically archetypes. The evil king, the wise mage tutor/guide, the young man coming into his destined power, the stout and lionhearted dwarf warrior, the beautiful and powerful and enigmatic female love interest, etc. My nutshell description is "LotR Harry Potterized." but that's less accurate after HP book 5, when wild stuff starts to happen and good guys start to die. What I mean though is that this is in the flavor of high fantasy/sword and sorcery, but it's been made very easy to follow and kid friendly. There's just one main character and he's always the focus of the story. He's young but strong, has incredible power within him, a great dragon pet/companion/steed, and a treacherous mission to undertake to save his world. So no, it's not original, and yes, it's frequently very derivative. Nevertheless, it's a good yarn with a character you can't help but root for, bad guys you want to see defeated, and there's a reason that 75% of fantasy novels use this formula... because it works. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece or anything, but it's a fun, fast-paced read, and I went from expecting to hate it to enjoying it and looking forward to reading book 2 in the series. There, I admitted it.
September 13, 2005 Prodigy or hack? So... Eragon. You've
probably seen the book on a shelf somewhere, at CostCo or Barnes and
Noble or wherever, and wondered at the slightly humanoid dragon staring
back at you from the blue cover. I'd seen it a million times, but never
been moved to pick it up for longer than it took me to flip through a
few pages. With the second book in the trilogy (?) now out though, I
gave the first one some more thought, and researched it on Amazon.com. Check
it out yourself; there's quite a lively debate. Others are less kind: Given my downright hostile reaction to the Tolkien-lite Sword of Shannara, I kind of doubt I'll even make it through Eragon. But I was curious, and it was at the library, so here we are. If it sucks I'll finally get started on the last Harry Potter book, which has been sitting here for weeks. I really need to check some HP FAQ online first though, since I read books 1-5 pretty much right in a row, and the details of them have all blurred together in my mind.
Speaking of Eragon, as I was (Sort of. Tangentially.) in the previous post, I'm about halfway through it, and it's not bad. It's not great, and it's probably not even good, but it's servicable fantasy, and I've certainly read worse. I feared it would be as big of a rip off as its detractors say, but while it's not original, and most of the elements of magic, dragons, the world at large, etc, are certianly derivative, at least they're not outright recreations. I don't have any huge complaints so far; just lots of nitpicks. For example: 1) A lot of the dialogue is very flat and lectur-y. Not at all how real people talk, and way too, "Let me explain exactly how I feel in one short sentence." It's an immature writing style, and I mean that more in terms of the writer's experience than his age. I've read plenty of work by much older writers that makes the same mistake. 2) The lack of originality is a problem, and it seems very avoidable. The world is basically Tolkien's Middle Earth, with some of MacCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern grafted on, and magic heavily-influenced by LeGuin's Earthsea novels. Humans dominate the world and there are secretive, noble, and powerful elves, but they're fading away and seldom seen these days. Dwarves exist also, but are even more hidden away in their mountains. Evil orc-type monsters are massing and rampaging over the isolated human villages. Etc. Why not throw in a fourth non-monster race? Or make the dwarves be wood elves or something, rather than cut and pasting in short, bearded, mine-digging guys? Why not makes the elves be flighty and silly, or scheming and evil? Anything, just to break out of the Tolkien blueprint. 3) Christopher Piolini can't write dramatic scenes or emotion very well (yet?) so every time something that should be awesome happens, it's just sort of book reported on. It's very "telling" rather than "showing," as the old writer's mantra goes. We see the hero teenager falling down and sobbing when someone he loves dies, but we feel no emotion. We read about him running from a monster, but we don't really sense his fear, or his triumph when he slays a foe. Etc. I can't really say what is missing from his telling of such scenes, and I would have hated to hear this when I was a young writer, but maybe he just needs some more life experience. At 16 or 17 (his age when he wrote this novel) I didn't have enough first hand knowledge of such emotions, or the maturity to convincingly work them into words. I'm not entirely sure I do now, for that matter. 4) The main problem stems from the unorginality and lack of emotional intensity in the writing, and it's that I don't feel involved in things. I'm interested in the plot and the characters, but it's purely a "What's going to happen next?" sort of interest. I don't have an emotional connection to anyone, and I don't really care what they do. I think this is largely because the characters don't really feel alive to me; they're just people I'm reading about. It's holding my interest, but not compelling me to read very quickly, and I could stop right now and read an outline of the novel from some online FAQ and feel I'd gotten almost as much out of it as if I'd continued reading it myself. I'd rather read the book itself, and I'm going to finish it, but I'm not feeling much urgency to do so. Perhaps things will pick up, though. The adventures have hardly even begun, and the stage is being set for an interesting series of confrontations through the remainder of the trilogy.
As for Eragon, I
blogged about it in advance, when I didn't think I'd be able to
tolerate it long enough to finish reading it. I
blogged again halfway through, and full of nit picking skepticism.
Now that I've finished it, I have to admit that I enjoyed it quite a
bit. It's never all that original, and yes, it's derivative of lots of
other fantasy series, but only in terms of hitting the archetypes. Evil
king enslaving a land, ravening monsters terrorizing the populace, young
hero born into poverty who gains in strength rapidly, loyal and
steadfast friends with their own troubles with the law, powerful and
rare psychic pet, etc. Eragon's young author takes these elements and
combines them in an original story though, with a fun plot, lots of
action, and lots of scene changes. The characters aren't original or
very involving, but that's my biggest complaint, and since I enjoyed the
plot and the action and grew to like the main character and his dragon,
I could overlook the minor problems. |
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All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007. |
hough
I have blogged about this novel and the author any number of times, I
never actually got around to writing a full review. The following scores
are from memory, some months after. If you want more comments, read the
posts below the scores, which detail my thoughts as I prepared to read
it, read it, and digested it afterwards.