Rating:  Summary: Eragon Review: At first I thought that this might be too juvenile for me being 22 and the target group being young adolencent but then I read the first five pages and I was hooked. It is a good start for a writer of 15, to say the least. It flows fantastically and has a great potential to keep its momentum. I look foward to reading the rest of the series.
Rating:  Summary: The Magical Dragon and Eragon Review: This book is fantasy all the way! "Eragon" is an amazing book! Every chapter got more and more exciting. It never let go of my attention. I felt like I was there, watching the whole thing through my eyes. This book is truly magical. I got so attached to all of the interesting characters. When I put the book down I felt like I missed, like they were real. I love everything about this book. My cousin recommended "Eragon" to me and I recommend it to you! A boy named Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest. He desides to bring the stone back home, he thinks it will buy meat for the family. Little does he know that the blue stone is really a dragon egg! Eragon now understands he isn't an ordinary farm boy anymore. Just over night his once simple life evolves into a magical journey with magic. Eragon only has the advice of a storyteller, and now a dragon hatchling, and now they must find their way in a magical world of surprises, magic, and new enemies. Will Eragon be able to make it through this strange world of magic with his new companion? The strange road that lies ahead will be his destiny. I would recommend this book to grades seven and up. Because in the beginning the book goes slow, and it is a little confusing. But once you work your way into the book you'll love it. And if you like fantasy this whole book revolves around fantasy. I like fantasy, and this is one of my favorite books. A great book by Christopher Paolini. Can't wait for the sequel!
Rating:  Summary: Good...for the lover of fantasy Review: The author's debut is quite auspicious, especially given his young age. The book is well-written, easy to follow, and engrossing. Yes, it is your standard, run-of-the-mill fantasy, but that does not detract from its significant entertainment value. I read this book in one day, I just couldn't put it down. And I'm certainly looking forward to the next in the series. If you're looking for something different, "Eragon" is not the novel for you, but otherwise it is a very enjoyable read.
Rating:  Summary: Good and bad Review: This is a nicely written story, but would have been much better with an original plot. It's a fairly obvious combination of Tolkien and Star Wars.
Rating:  Summary: Dont see what all the hype was about Review: OK, Having just finished this book based on all the hype I've been hearing. I see nothing to justify the hype about this book! The book is long on details and the pace of the story drags to the point of putting the reader to sleep. The fights, either with swords or magic spells are quick and end within 1 to 2 pages and then its back to long pointless details and prodding story telling. Like, who cares how it takes to make a dragon saddle or how it takes to walk 10 miles? The 'hero' of the story Eragon doesnt seem to learn from his mistakes and continues to make the same type of mistakes over and over again every time he uses magic when fighting! Plus the constant repeating of the fall of the dragon riders and the rise of the evil king gets boring after reading it for the 3rd or 6th time! I eagerly await the second or third printing of book 1, as well as book 2 and hopefully the author will learn from his mistakes with book 1 and make book 2 a more interesting story. Change the settings and some of the charaters, pick up the pace of the story and you have a good sci-fi or star wars type of story here.
Rating:  Summary: Fun read. Review: This book was a fun read. There are times that you can tell that the writer was in his mid to late teens when he wrote it, and other times that he writes far beyond what you would expect from someone his age. Excellent read that I would recommend to any fan of this genre.
Rating:  Summary: Good, But Unoriginal Review: Pro: It gets steadily better and more exciting towards the end. For a teenager, this is amazing (...) Con:The writing is sometimes clunky, dragons are too perfect-not in personality, but the author keeps on saying that dragons are mysterious and stuff so that when they do totally amazing things like create diamonds out of nowhere he can just use that as an excuse, Eragon has too many powers-a lot of the time the authors states something along the lines of 'wow, what you did in X days normally takes a person X months/years', the characters are unlikeable, and most importantly, it's excruciatingly unorginal. (...) The twists aren't surprising at all for someone who reads enough books-not just fantasy-to know all of the cliches. And it irks me that they don't even bother to make Eragon just born powerful, he's special because he is named after this really powerful guy (obvious, much?) and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a prophecy about his birth too. -.- Still, for a teenager it's good and toward the end it's exciting enough for me to want to read the next book.
Rating:  Summary: Good, But Unoriginal Review: Pro: It gets steadily better and more exciting towards the end. For a teenager, this is amazing, but there is another book I read by a teenager which is better, except I've forgotten the name. Con:The writing is sometimes clunky, dragons are too perfect-not in personality, but the author keeps on saying that dragons are mysterious and stuff so that when they do totally amazing things like create diamonds out of nowhere he can just use that as an excuse, Eragon has too many powers-a lot of the time the authors states something along the lines of 'wow, what you did in X days normally takes a person X months/years', the characters are unlikeable, and most importantly, it's excruciatingly unorginal. Now, I'm not a big fan of Lord Of The Rings, so I've only read the books once. But even I can tell that several things are stolen from LoTR, Ursula K. Leguin, and fantasy in general. The twists aren't surprising at all for someone who reads enough books-not just fantasy-to know all of the cliches. And it irks me that they don't even bother to make Eragon just born powerful, he's special because he is named after this really powerful guy (obvious, much?) and I wouldn't be surprised if there is a prophecy about his birth too. -.- Still, for a teenager it's good and toward the end it's exciting enough for me to want to read the next book.
Rating:  Summary: Eragon Review: I read an article about Eragon in "Home Education Magazine" which fascinated me. For the next few months, I searched everywhere for it, but was disappointed. Recently, however, a friend mentioned this "dragon book" by a fifteen year old. My response was, "Eragon?" That was how I found out where to get the book. I read it in two days, and was drawn in by every sentence. To be fair, there were some instances which I thought stilted, for example, when Solembum informs Eragon about what to do if his power is insufficient, etc. It sounded too much like my own writing. And yet it fit, and I definitely could not write it any better. Some descriptions have been said to be clichés, and yet, in the context of the book, they fit. Sure, he could do better, but where would Paolini go if he wrote his best book at fifteen? The languages are interesting, although more of them would always be nice for those of us who are amateur linguists. The few sentences aren't enough to have a grammatical review. But more will surely be coming in Eldest, book two. Why is Eragon so popular, and so hated? I have read articles by people who find it repulsive, who need to read all the Harry Potter books to cleanse their minds before sleeping, and I also have my own reaction which was to redesign my list of best authors from JRR Tolkien, Asimov, and Jacques to JRR Tolkien, Paolini, Asimov, and Jacques. This is proof that it is like the LotR, as JRRT observed peoples reactions to it in a poem: The Lord of the Rings/is one of those things/if you like it you do/if you don't then you boo! Congratulations to Christopher Paolini for a great book, and I, for one, have no need to cleanse my mind after reading "Eragon." (Which is not something I could say about some other writers. . .)
Rating:  Summary: the title should warn you Review: I was dismayed by the title (way, WAY too similar to Aragon of LOTR) but since it's a fat fantasy, gave it a try. Kept on going, despite increasing dissapointment at words, characters, settings lifted directly from other books & movies. Stone that turns into dragon = Simak, people riding dragons= McCaffery, tuatha as magic word = Willow, old man as warrior in hiding = Star Wars, elves as beautiful guardians of the good = Tolkien, etc., etc. There were just TOO many borrowings to be credible. It was similar to the fan fiction one sees on the web, or that most of us wrote in high school. Then I find out afterwards...he WAS in high school! So that explains it all. When he finds a voice of his own, he'll be a good author, but I'm afraid this wasn't it.
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