Eldest/ Christopher Paolini

Eldest by Christopher Paolini. adventure, YA fiction, dragons, fantasy, series. 999 pages

After rereading the second installment of Christopher Paolini's inheritance cycle, I have a new appreciation for how important this volume is in the spectrum of the whole series. This was a perfect example of a book that is much better on the second read-through because you will understand things that were otherwise shrugged off as cryptic during the first reading. Since Paolini wrote Eldest after his first book, Eragon, had already become a bestseller, he felt free to make the story much more his own instead of borrowing pre-existing events from Star Wars, which is obviously Paolini's most powerful influence. Yes, there are still a few things straight out of Star Wars including Eragon's training under Oromis, an old and crippled dragon rider who lives in isolation to carry on the ancient teachings of the riders, which is almost a carbon copy of Luke Skywalker's training under Yoda in Star Wars. Eledest also features an "I am your father" moment when his mysterious lineage is finally revealed. Besides those and a few other token quotes that Paolini pilfers verbatim from the Star Wars script (ex an ominous villain stating: "Look inside yourself, you know it to be true..."), he really begins to make the story his own.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Eldest is that Paolini manages to get readers deeply invested in the world he showed us in the first book. Eldest is a lot less about creating a world and a lot more about looking at the world from different perspectives. Eragon's experiences with dwarves, elves, and even other humans show the reader a plethora of differing (and even conflicting) perspectives on life, death, destiny, magic, responsibility, friendship, and other important themes. We learn a lot more about the clan structure and religious dogma of the dwarves as well as the hobbies and diets of the elves and other things that a bare-bones fantasy writer would probably ignore.

I also enjoyed that Paolini decided to flesh out some characters I thought would remain minor characters such as Nasuada, daughter of Ajihad, leader of the Varden, the human resistance, and Roran, Eragon's cousin who was not really mentioned after chapter 5 of the first book. By giving us interesting storylines to follow with these characters, I actually found myself wanted to hurry through portions of Eragon's training in the woods so I could hear more about what was going on with Roran. Eragon's storyline is obviously the most important, but any author who can get the reader to actually WANT the main storyline to pause in order to explore a sideplot deserves applause.

Furthermore, Eldest expresses even better than the first volume the theme that becomes the focus of the whole series: INHERITANCE. This story, although it focuses on Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, is about a new generation of younger heroes inheriting the world from an older generation. We see this in many different characters and their storylines. I think the actual word "inheritance" is used like 25 times during the book; enough to keep drilling this theme into my head without seeming hokey and mainstreamed.

I do have one criticism about this book. Just one. This may be me splitting hairs, too, but I have to mention it. Perhaps the biggest OMG moment that Paolini expects to give the reader is the emergence of a red dragon and his rider in this story. I won't ruin the story by saying who it is, but they don't appear (actually, come to think of it...they aren't even MENTIONED) until the 2nd to last chapter of the book. This wouldn't be a big deal except the cover of this book is a FREAKING MENACING LOOKING RED DRAGON!!!! I mean, yes, the identity of the dragon's rider is kind of a surprise, but the fact is that it's distracting to the reader to be taunted with this evil looking dragon only to have to wait until the second to last chapter to find out who he is. Now, it must be noted that Paolini puts a dragon on every one of his covers, but it would've made more sense for Glaedr, Oromis' gold dragon who appears about 1/3 of the way through the book, to grace the cover, but instead, Paolini decided to put Glaedr on the cover of Brisingr, the third installment. I know this may not seem like much of a big deal, but it is...Can I get over it? Yes. Easily? No.

All-in-all though, this is an awesome book. If you decide to read Eragon, you won't need this blog entry to convince you to read Eldest, though. You'll just want to read it because Paolini makes readers want to always know what's going on next. I almost want to start reading book 3- Brisingr, tonight, but finishing Eldest took a lot out of me.