Eragon (Inheritance, Book 1) by Christopher Paolini


A pleasant enough read but Paolini seriously needs to send an apology to George Lucas...

Originally published in 2003.

I enjoyed the book but I kept on thinking that I've read this book before. No, I'm not talking about the obvious debt Paolini owes the Tolkein and also to the "Dragonriders of Pern" series.

I'm talking Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope or plain old Star Wars to all of us old-timers.

Both feature an orphaned teenage farm boy, left with his uncle under mysterious circumstances that no one wants to discuss.

The uncle dies when dangerous outsiders come looking for the boy.

Luke Skywalker has the Force. Eragon has magic.

Both Luke and Eragon are watched over by strange older men who eventually provide them with their first weapon - the very weapon that wiped out a set of good knights in the name of an evil emperor.  In both stories, the strange older man character teaches them a type of magic and how to fight.

The older man dies.

Eragon frees a girl from a castle with the help of that wanted-by-the-law Rogue Murtagh. Luke frees a girl from the Death Star with the help of that wanted-by-the-law rogue Han Solo.

The Emperor uses magic to turn a dragonrider to kill off all of the good dragonriders. The Emperor uses the Force to turn a Jedi Knight to kill off all of the good Jedi Knight.

Are there more comparisons? Surely there are but my point has been made.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

 This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Eragon.

 Reviewed on May 29, 2007.

Update: This book was placed on a "banned books" list in Texas in the 2022-2023 school year. Ugh. 

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