Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Inheritance by Christopher Paolini is the conclusion to the Inheritance Cycle. Out of all of the books, this was the best written story and it had a lot of potential but how anyone can give this book 5 stars is beyond my comprehension, if for not other reason than the ending. The conclusion has to be one of the worst endings I have ever read to a series.
First off, I must say that you can tell Paolini is improving as a writer. I saw a little less in terms of borrowed story-lines in Inheritance although it was still there. It is very obvious that the author is a fan of Tolkien and Star Wars. Also, the simplistic and unexplored objectivist views hint that the author changed course from a simple story to dabbling with allegory, much like Terry Goodkind. Unlike Goodkind I can’t tell if this was intentional on the part of the author or if he threw in these views because that is what another fantasy writer did and he liked the idea.
Then we have the issue of too much fluff and fillers in these stories. There is no way this series needed to fill four books. Much of it had nothing to truly lend to the final conclusion such as Nasuada’s capture in which he rambled on about her jailer whom we never learned a name for or his story. It added nothing beneficial to the story so why the author spent so much care and attention on describing the jailer’s fingernails causes me to scratch my head in confusion.
This book could have very well picked up at the Vault of Souls and bypassed the entire first half of the book. It is honestly…sad. It’s sad that I enjoyed this book more than all three of the first and yet it still had so much rambling. Then the fact that the leading up to killing Galbatorix had no huge climax. It was just…over. Then the next 200+ pages had to semi-wrap up all the side story lines that were present and he didn’t even do that efficiently.
Spoiler Alert: The conclusion to this story has me wondering why I wasted so much time even reading. Despite the short comings that I described above, I would have still given this book 5 stars. That is, until I read the end. There is no real conclusion. So what, Saphira finds a temporary mate…only to be ripped away from him. Arya finally admits to an attraction to Eragon after four books of him pining away for her and for what? For him to still be alone? We have absolutely no idea what happens. We have no idea if Saphira ever hatched some eggs or if she died with no love or family. The author tied up the unnecessary ends and left the important ones to have no conclusion which really sums up my point of “What did I read all four of these books for?” Did I read it for the anti-climatic killing of Galbatorix because that was over entirely too fast. Did I read it to see Murtagh redeem himself? Because if I did…the author failed on that point too. Although Murtagh did redeem himself for what point did he do it? So he could ride off into the sunset without a real conclusion to his story? For the sake of a girl that he doesn’t even end up with? His interest in Nasuada was enough to influence him to betray Galbatorix and yet it was not explored any further? What a colossal waste of my time. I’m so disappointed. Paolini had the chance to redeem himself with this book and he wasted it by writing such an unfulfilled ending.
Click here to read all of my Reviews about the Inheritance Cycle
About the Author:
Christopher Paolini was raised in the Paradise Valley, Montana area. His family members include his parents, Kenneth Paolini and Talita Hodgkinson, and his sister, Angela Paolini. Home schooled for the duration of his education, Paolini graduated from high school at the age of 15 through a set of accredited correspondence courses from American School of Correspondence in Lansing, Illinois. Following graduation, he started his work on what would become the novel Eragon the first of a series, set in the mythical land of Alagaësia.
In 2002, Eragon was published by Paolini International LLC, Paolini’s parents’ company. Paolini created the cover art for the first edition of Eragon, which featured Saphira’s eye. He also drew the maps on the inside covers of his books.
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