Product Description

OATHS SWORN . . . loyalties tested . . . forces collide.

Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran: to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength—as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices— choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once-simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1373 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-20
• Released on: 2008-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 763 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780375826726
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The much-anticipated third book in Paolini's Inheritance Cycle continues to rely heavily on classic fantasy tropes. The novel launches with magician and Dragon Rider Eragon, his cousin Roran and the dragon Saphira on a quest to rescue Roran's betrothed. The cousins soon split up, and Roran undergoes his own series of heroic tests, culminating in a well-choreographed and intense fight against an Urgal (a ram-human hybrid). Eragon, at the same time, encounters treacherous dwarves, undergoes even more training with the elf Oromis and gains a magical sword suitable for a Dragon Rider. The silly revelations about Eragon's background in the previous book, Eldest, are given a new spin near the end, but the change is neither unexpected nor interesting. Predictably, the book concludes with even more character deaths and another battle, but those expecting a resolution will have to wait until the next novel. The cliched journey may appeal to younger readers of genre fiction. Older teens, even those who might have first cut their teeth on Paolini's writing years ago, are less likely to be impressed. Ages 12-up.
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About the Author
Christopher Paolini’s abiding love of fantasy and science fiction inspired him to begin writing his debut novel, Eragon, when he graduated from high school at 15. He lives in Paradise Valley, Montana.

Customer Reviews

"...events have been dark and bloody of late."
I'm not your typical Eragon basher. I find the professional Eragon detractors tiringly obsessive, and every time someone clogs up a message board with another hey-this-is kinda-like-Star Wars post he's SURE is pure unprecedented genius insight, I'm certain an angel loses his wings.

Unfortunately, the series is growing into the complaints. Paolini does have talent, but his sales figures and incredible life story have seemingly allowed his manuscripts to go unchecked, and his writing flaws are getting worse, not better.


Three major problems with "Brisingr":

1) It's way too violent. It opens on a group of fanatics who slice off their own limbs to prove their faith, whose rituals we observe in loving detail. (The head priest has lopped himself down to just a torso.) We soon continue to a torture victim whose eyes have been pecked - eaten - out of his face. "Gore" is Paolini's favorite word, particularly when it is "smeared" on something, and we get endless graphic depictions of Roran's hammer smashing an enemy soldier's skull/throat/arm/spine, its owner rejoicing in the carnage. I don't expect war to be bowlderized, but the book revels in charnel for its own sake and is too bloody for readers under thirteen.

2) Eragon has become a bit of a sociopath. A reunion with one of his childhood bullies - who's just been through horrific torture - becomes a control-and-humiliate fantasy that's disturbing. When the typically closed Arya touchingly recounts her love's recent death and how it stole all joy from her world, Eragon's heart is unmoved; he feels only irritation and jealousy, fuming that he will "not be discouraged in his suit". (Has he been reading "The Game"?) The book's ruminations on the morality of killing reach only the uninspired conclusion that it's unavoidable in war, and we're thus meant to take a certain satisfaction when Eragon joyfully dispatches even those ordinary men forced into service by Galbatorix. I guess the debate was meant only to free us from our nagging moral reservations.

As in "Eldest", Eragon's praised to high heaven by every single soul, given credit for every achievement. At points, the book seems to have other characters only so that they can sing of their inferiority to its shining star.

3) As nearly every other commenter has noted, it's too bloated, with deadly pacing. Galbatorix's nightmarish Ra'zac servants are dealt with early, leaving Eragon to dither with rebel leader Nasuada and go off on a few preparatory errands for about 600 pages. (A 200-page detour into dwarf politics is particularly deadening.) We keep waiting for the meat to arrive, for some crisis or confrontation, and (save for a quick and inconsequential early battle with Murtagh) it never comes. There is no real climax, save for the easily-accomplished sacking of one city and a death we all long saw coming, albeit not in such meaningless circumstances.

The lack of individual voices in the story makes things drag all the more; every character has an identical manner of speaking, all bloviation and overexplanation in high-fantasy Olde Englishe. Paolini too often substitutes scads of meaningless proper names for the little moments that make bring a fantasy world to life.

A few of those moments slip through, though, like the dotty old man who roosts in the majestic ruins of a half-toppled, tree-like tower, harvesting peas. Or when Arya, on a whim, braids a miniature ship from wild grasses and breathes into it magic that will allow it fly for perpetuity; Eragon wonders what stories people will tell of it in the years to come. I laugh at the self-important magicians' society Du Vrangr Gata, whose study of the ancient language is not as complete as they think and whose name therefore translates into the Alagaesian equivalent of Engrish. I like the atypically crusty elven smith, intolerant of how "too polite, too refined, too precious" her Tolkien-influenced race has become, or the touches of culture (family totems, bedtime stories) Paolini has given his orc race. For those who like dragons, Saphira's a sparkling specimen.

And there are *dwarf ninjas*. That's gotta count for something, with someone.

My point is that the books need less Gary Stu carnage and more gems like these. Show us why this world is worth fighting (and fighting and fighting) for.

And we need some actual change to come out of all these pages. Roran's love soothes his anxiety over his battlefield casualities by opining that he'd be evil only if he actually enjoyed killing. Later - whaddaya know - Roran DOES come to love killing, quite enthusiastically, but the book forgets to look at him any differently. Eragon makes a few crucial mistakes in dwarfland due to arrogance and petulance, but he is still lavishly praised from here to Valinor. Nasuada endures a (naturally) bloody duel for leadership of the rebel faction, yet she is viewed no differently by her people afterward. Murtagh's horrific tragedy, the king who hosts the rebel Varden yet resents being pushed to the sidelines in his own country, the new hot elf guardsman who's really a lion-type furry and whose musk gets all the females...er, in heat - nothing comes of any of it. (The waste of Murtagh, who now apparently exists only to be ruthlessly dispatched, is particularly criminal.) C'mon, Rowling introduced and destroyed seven whole Horcruxes in the same space! Pick a story and develop it!

Also, are we gonna SEE Galbatorix before this series ends? There is an evil EMPEROR in this evil empire, correct?

Enough sarcasm, though. Again, it's senseless to waste your life hating these books as some do, all anti-Shur'tugal; better simply to move on to other stories. Myself, I just wish someone would guide Paolini - edit him down, focus him - so the rest of us got more out of his talent.

A satisfying fantasy adventure tale
I enjoyed the first two books of this series, and was eager to read the third. I won't outline the plot, because you can find that elsewhere. I will just tell you what I think about this book.

It is an enjoyable read, and a worthy third installment to the series. I thought that Eragon was a very good story, and Eldest not quite as good, although Paolini's writing had improved. Brisingr is the best of the three. I fell back into the story right away, and I found myself caring about the characters, even worrying about their safety. This is what I look for in fiction: it made me want to pick up the book every chance I got. If it interferes with the rest of my life, it is a very good book. Brisingr is one of those books. I am thankful to my son that he recommended this series to me.

Some reviewers of Eldest were very critical of the fact that the plot is derivative of other epics, like The Lord Of The Rings or Star Wars. I didn't mind this in the least. It is the tale of a hero's journey, complete with absence, devestation and return. It is one of the oldest tales in storytelling. We already know the story, but it is the storytelling that makes it good or bad. Paolini is a good writer. Not as great as Tolkein or LeGuin, but good nevertheless. I was able to suspend my inner critic, and enjoy the read. I recommend that you do the same.

Get Paolini a Better Editor
I read the author's notes at the back of the book before I started and that's where I learned that this book would have been much longer had not an editor worked with Paolini to trim it down.

Time to fire that editor and hire one who will actually do the job.

Paolini's writing and the attendant lack of a competent editor remind me of what happened with Tom Clancy's books: A halfway decent story gets buried in all sorts of bad writing. If it's not the minutiae of how a sword is made (reminded me of one of Clancy's little side-trips in how to make a submarine quiet), it's the endless repetition of information that has already been introduced and death-by-hackneyed-phrases. Really, a simple search and delete of the overused phrase "waking dream" and oft-repeated references to the trial of long blades will likely reduce this book by about 50 pages. Then cut out the gratuitous meandering into useless subplots (such as the cult execution scene at the beginning, dwarf politics, Roran's integration into the Varden warriers, three paragraphs of description every time Saphira needs to poke her head into something small) and Paolini could have hit the salient plot points *and* finished this epic all within 350 pages.

It's a ponderously long and winded tale that doesn't add significantly to what was already known, and then snatches away the payoff by needing another 700-page tome to finish the tale. None of this would be as bothersome if the writing were actually good.

When I first read Eragon and criticized it for these same failings, my friends said, "He's a young author and this is a great achievement for someone in his teens." OK, I'll buy that. But it's been six years since Eragon was published. One would think the boy wonder had actually learned better writing and story telling skills in the intervening years. If nothing else, some one at Knopf should have assigned a competent editor to rein in the ceaseless blather.