The end of the Inheritance Cycle has finally come! It seems like it has been forever since I read Eragon for the first time, and now I finally know how his story finishes. And I must say, I have mixed feelings about the book. Overall I thought it was good, a good way to end the trilogy-turned-into-four-books. There were no loose ends left, and if there was, I would have been amazed because it is an 860 page novel. But then again, he did have a lot of loose ends to tie up. But, like I said, he did a good job of making sure the reader knew how everything happened and how everything ended.
For anyone who doesn’t know, the Inheritance Cycle follows a farmer boy named Eragon who becomes a Dragon Rider. The series is the chronical to when his dragon, Saphira, first hatches for him, to the final battle with the evil King Gallabatorix, who is also a Dragon Rider and is the reason that the Riders are gone and the dragons are nearly extinct. Eragon meets all sorts of creatures along the way, elves, dwarves, urgals, and they all weave their own story into Eragon’s. In Inheritance, the final battle is looming, but will the Varden (the rebel group) be able to defeat Gallabatorix? You’ll have to read to find out.
Here’s the thing that irks me about this series. Yes, Christopher Paolini is an amazing writer and the world that came from his mind is absolutely breath-taking. He also creates good, complex characters that all have their own background story, and it’s almost always something interesting. But I feel like there was a lot that he could have cut down on. There was one thing that really got on my nerves while I was reading the story. Eragon has a sword named Brisingr (hence the name for the third book, Brisingr), and when he utters that word, his sword bursts into flames. Every time Eragon made fire with magic, he said that he avoided using “Brisingr” so his sword wouldn’t light up. He did this a lot. After the first time it isn’t really necessary to say that, in my opinion. The reader gets that his sword lights on fire, and that fact isn’t going to change from beginning to end. There wasn’t a need to keep saying it every single time. I don’t really know why that irritated me so much, but it just did.
While I thought I could kind of predict where the series was going to go (the inevitable battle with Gallabatorix, and somehow Murtagh would be involved) I give Paolini credit in that he included some twists that I didn’t see coming. I won’t mention what they are, but I thought they were well placed and added a lot to the story. Also, once you get to the battle scene in the end (everyone knows that’s going to happen, right?) the book is darn near impossible to put down. While the battle goes on for a while (Paolini is very descriptive), you just have to know how it ends right away. And since so much action is going on, it’s almost impossible to find a good place to stop at that point. Stopping would mean leaving yourself hanging for a while. I think this made the wait for the ending almost okay, but I’m still a bit irritated it took him so long to finish the books. But I finally know how it ends. And I’m happy with it.
So, what will I be reading next? The Gray Wolf Throne by Cinda Williams Chima. Should be a good one!