Arrogant little thing, too. He- I kid you not- "strive[s] for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf." You don't SAY stuff like that. If you want to compare yourself to Tolkein you say, "I would be ecstatic if my work was considered anywhere close to the caliber of Lord of the Rings." It's as bad as smeyer saying Bella and Edward's love was greater than Romeo and Juliet- B&E WAS R&J love, minus the warning/tragedy at the end. Heck, R&J wasn't even a romantic story! GAR! *headexplodes* *hugs LotR* 

Well, I thought it was great! One of my favorite books! I've read every one in the series! If you want a believable argument, I'll give you one. I do not think Brom was a very good character, I thought he was "rather irksome" (meaning I wasn't all that upset when he died - sorry) and I thought Saphira was one of the best characters! The first book only took me about five days - which for me is a long time but if a book is really good, you don't want it to end. At least that's how it is for me. And I really like to read good, accurate descriptions of things, so I really don't mind verbosity. It wasn't draggy to me, because the story was interesting and original. How isn't it original? If you mean that it copied Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider, the books we re way different (the characters - especially the villains - were much more realistic.)

Well, it was written by a --what was it? 12-year-old? or was it 13..... *has headache* Oh whatever........

I think Eragon is a good book. But a lot of my favorite books are like that, so it might be the style of book I like....???? I don't know. But I still think Brom died too soon. At the end of the book would have been better. But the movie.....Is....Um....really off the book. I haven't read the 3rd book, though. Only the first two.

And I looove the naming of Saphira. Saphira said, Eragon. And Eragon said "Is that all you can say?" And Saphira said, Yes.

Nice sense of humor, doncha think?

But I haven't read Eragon for about a year......I'll have to dig it out and reread it again. It's a good book. But I'm not quite sure about the second one, though....

I come from an interesting background, regarding Eragon. All my siblings (who have read it) practically detest it, so you'd think, when I got around to reading the first book, that I would be a little influenced by those strong opinions. And I was--for the first book, which I still strongly dislike. I watched the movie first, which caused me to read the first book, which I thought dragged terribly. I loved Brom the most of all of them, and was very sad when he died. Of course, now I much prefer Murtagh, who has more character. I, too, think that Eragon, for the first two books, is a little twit, but by the third book, what with the changes, both physical and mental, that he has gone through, he's more of a mature twit, reckless as...um, a comparison escapes me. Saphira's a little shallow, I'll grant you that. I liked Aria. Anyway, to steer away from rambling, I noticed the verbosity, but it didn't really bother me (in the 2nd and 3rd books. It was a little too thickly spread in the first). By the second book, I was hooked. I know there was something about Paolini regarding his work as influenced by Tolkien, but I didn't know he actually compared himself to him. Since I haven't actually read Tolkien's works (which I intend to) I can't say much on the subject, but I think, if Paolini actually said that, then he is simply suffering from a) an inflated head, b) Eragon's twithood isn't just a work of literature, and the author rubbed off on him, or both. Most likely both, what with Paolini being such a *rolls eyes* young, celebrated author.