Eragon

Christopher Paolini

Okay, I admit it, I've fallen into the same trap everyone else is; I gave this book a lot of latitude given the age and inexperience of its author. Were this written by an adult who'd published a few books (or even, most likely, a first-time author over the age of 21), I'd have probably read through it criticizing far more than I actually did. Instead, I kept saying "man, this kid was fifteen when he wrote this stuff?"

That said, I do believe the one criticism I've seen levelled at this book more than any other-- that it's a ripoff of Tolkein that has dragons thrown into the mix-- seems to be being advanced by those who have read no more of epic fantasy than Tolkein and Paolini. Folks, everything that's come since has ripped off Tolkein and thrown dragons into the mix, with a few quite notable exceptions. An orc is an orc is an orc, and it doesn't matter what you call it, it's still an orc, a half-bestial adversary who's a lot stronger than the average human being, and masses of them stand between the intrepid hero and his far-off goal. Yes, Tolkein uses the conceit, and so does Paolini. And so have hundreds, if not thousands, of other fantasy authors in the intervening half-century. There's a kid going on a quest-- that's been a mainstay of fantasy since long before Tolkein drew a breath. There's a mysterious helper. (And to be fair, Paolini draws not from Tolkein, but from pulp fiction, for his mysterious helper, save that the guy's a mysterious helper.) There are bucolic little towns that end up smoldering piles of ash. Yeah, it's all fantasy staple, guys. Tolkein doesn't hold the copyright.

Now, consider Eragon in the wider realm of fantasy, and what you have is a pretty predictable five hundred odd pages. Boy finds egg. Boy gets egg. Boy (almost) loses egg. Egg hatches. Boy meets dragon. Dragon is pursued by Half-Bestial Adversaries(TM). Boy and dragon must find safety, and oh yeah, overthrow the evil emperor while they're at it. Lots of dashing and danger and rescues at the last minute, with the requisite deus ex machina moments, some elves, a dwarf or two, an apocalyptic final battle, etc. In all honesty, it reminds me far more of Robert Jordan than it does Tolkein, but without the endless tramping around in the woods.

The trick is, of course, that this is genre fantasy, and so predictability is to be expected; folks want to be safe when they read genre fiction. (Perhaps this is the reason Steve Erikson's fan base is still so criminally small in the States.) This is, simply, good, solid fun, and it makes me want to read Eldest, the second in the series-- which is, if I'm guessing correctly, what the first book in a trilogy is supposed to make you do. So it works, at least it works for me.