Introduction Now that the Harry Potter
series is behind me, I decided to go ahead with the
Inheritance Trilogy. I had read Eragon and thought that it was an interesting
start to the series, though a bit slow. So I got
Eldest, the second
book of the
Inheritance Trilogy.
The Plot The Plot starts from where the
Eragon ended, i.e. battlefield at Farthen Dur. While the Varden are rehabilitating from the aftereffects of the battle, they get a body blow in the form of murder of their king, Ajihad. To add to that Eragon''s friend Murtagh and the magicians Twins also either seems to have been killed or taken by the Urgals. Ajihad''s daughter, Nasuada is chosen to lead the Varden after him.
The Varden, the dwarves and the elves all line up to make sure that Eragon ends up swearing loyalty to their race. Eragon ends up swearing loyalty to all three races!! Eragon has paid a big price in the battle at Farthen Dur and though still a Rider, it seems that he would be crippled for life with the injury to his back and spine. Anyhow, he goes to the elves for further
training in the hope that they might know something to cure him. In the meantime, Varden are preparing to move to Surda in a final attempt to challenge the
empire openly.
Meanwhile, back at Eragon''s village, Carvahall, his popularity has caused a major tragedy with the empire barricading the village. The
village is surrounded by Ra''zac and their forces. Unable to completely protect themselves against this, the villagers led by Eragon''s cousin Roran desert the village in search of forces that would find the Empire.
Eragon reaches Du WeldenVarden and meets the Eldest rider, Oromis and his dragon Glaedr. Both are incapacitated and are spending their time in retirement. Over the past decades they have taught a great many Riders including Brom and Morzan. Now they start to tutor Eragon and Saphira about Riders and the use of magic. By the end of the training Eragon knows more about elves, dragons and other creatures around him than he taught possible.
Suddenly, the battle clouds are looming over Surda. The empire is preparing to attack Surda and the action is going to start. Eragon is required to abandon his training and reach Surda to assist the Varden.
Does Eragon reach in time? Does he have any impact on the war even with his partial training? Does Varden have enough resources to thwart the empire? Check out
Eldest for all the answers.
Critic''s Viewpoint In my review of
Eragon, I had mentioned how impressed I am about Christopher Paolini''s first offering. One of the things that I had felt then though was that the story was not complex enough to match the likes of
Harry Potter series or the
Lord of the Rings series.
That is precisely what Paolini has tried to address in
Eldest. Suddenly the story starts moving in several parallel threads. So we have Eragon undergoing the Rider training and also studying about all other races, the Varden are groping with internal politics and are preparing to attack the Empire, the villagers of Carvahall are fighting for their survival and the Empire prepares for the final assault. That''s a start, but then the intricacies are still not there. The boardroom drama at Varden where they elect Nasuada as the new chief seems to lack the depth that such a scenario provides. Other things like internal politics between the Varden and Orrin''s army is also lacking in depth.
The one good thing Paolini has done is that he has tried to build upon the basic definition of the races that have been defined in
Lord of the Rings. This means he does not need to start afresh in building all their basic characteristics and that makes ihose who have read the
Lord of the Rings series to get into the groove for this one. The novel addition here is a bit more detailed analysis of dragons and their properties and their thought processes.
Coming to the pace of the book, the book starts very slowly with the aftermath of the war of Farthen Dur and then picks up a bit of pace and then goes to sleep again and then towards the end the action hots up. To give a fair idea of how gripping this book was, it took me nearly one full month to go through 650 odd pages of this book. Compared to this
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was done and dusted from cover to cover (around 600 pages) in about 2 and half days!!
I think Paolini''s dalliance with portrayal of romance between Roran and Katreena was slow and painful to say the least. He could have well nigh steered out of the same. Also the portions dealing with Carvahall and their resistance was so drawn out that I think it was more to fill up the pages than to add much value to the story.
Summary But, again as I said Paolini is still a work in progress writer and given that much leeway his writings hold a lot of promise. I think this book sets up the last book of the inheritance series which is still unnamed.
I would give this book an average 3 star rating.
More reviews about the Eldest