Book: Eragon

Well, eventually the day comes when I get around to reading even really popular literature and so it arrived for this book. A friend loaned it to me and it took some time for it to rise to the top of my reading list. I’m a bit slow to grab things that have a immediate, huge public following–just one of my personality quirks.

Having gotten the covers open, I found an interesting, but not riveting story. That is to say, I didn’t read it all at one session or have difficulty putting it down. I do like light reading, and it fit that category quite nicely. There are no really odd monsters or characters. The politics is pretty simple, and the scenes of individual combat and the battles are described in a very general fashion. Many readers will like that, though I tend to prefer the more blow by blow descriptions (David Weber comes to mind).

Eragon, the lead character, stumbles into his heroic mission, then takes it up reluctantly but quite effectively. There are several story lines left for later books, and reviews indicate the second volume is better than the first. It’s pretty difficult to write something that good for young readers and at the same time keeps the attention of adult readers, so this is not a bad job at all, and the author was 17 when it was published in 2003.

I haven’t seen the movie; who knows when I’ll get to that.

Rating: 3.7 (1 – 5)