Eragon

Christopher Paolini

Eragon is a Fantasy adventure that that is the first book in a trilogy, but before I summarise it lets start with the vaguely uninteresting story of why I initially read it.

On the weekend that Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest Premiered in Australia I attended a display at the cinema. A black powder re-enactment group that a couple of members from my Medieval re-enactment group are involved with were dressing up in pirate costume and hanging out at the cinema to add a bit of fun atmosphere for movie goers.

Firing Cannons and Muskets is a pastime frowned upon in shopping centers and cinema complexes so they needed extra bodies, preferably those that could fit in the spare costumes and do an adequate job of swinging a cutlass around without injuring people, the basket hilt was odd and I kept clipping the tricorn hat during some of the sword swings I occasionally like to use but I had fun helping them out none the less. Too bad there were no shoes that fit me, but the rest of the outfit was pretty sweet, and the non-working flintlocks were nice accessories.

Anyhow whilst at the cinema I noticed posters for some upcoming movie that appeared to be some sort of fantasy thing that I had never heard of, I did some searching and discovered that it was based on that book that I occasionally saw when passing young readers section, the one with the dopey looking blue dragon on the front of it.

Discovering this I purchased a copy and began reading it, being in the young readers section it was cheaper than most novels I would normally purchase. Since it was a fantasy movie there was basically no chance I was going to not be seeing it when it came out, I wanted to read the book first. There is also the possibility of doing a display when it launches, but in armour instead of pirate threads. Just like Lord of the Rings where I hooked up with the re-enactment group. The Cinema's management seemed very keen on doing more stuff, much less of a pain in the backside than dealing with the other chain where the Lord of the Rings displays took place.

I really quite enjoyed the book, I am very interested to see how the film turns out. I purchase its sequel once it became available in a standard paperback, strange card was been used for the covers on these books however I have not come across it before, it feels odd and also has strange optical properties as seen in the scan.

So anyhow on with the review, the story goes something like this... Luke Skywalker is a young guy who is a farmer and has been raised by his uncle, he never met his parents, he leads a normal boring sheltered farm boy life and has never left his village until he makes an amazing and important discovery and then goes off on a quest with an old dude that everyone thinks is a crazy story teller but is actually one of the last of his ancient order after things turn really ugly in the local area because of his discovery. The old guy starts young Skywalker's training but is killed before he can complete it.

It feels a lot like Starwars a new hope at the start but in a fantasy setting, maybe Starwars meets Lord of the Rings or something. Playing Luke Skywalker in this tale is Eragon, a 15-year-old boy who lives in a small village called Carvahall it is a forested area nestled in a scary mountain range that everyone is really scared of. One day whilst on a hunting trip he finds his R2D2, a strange blue gemstone that he thinks he can sell to earn money for his family, he fails to sell it to the traveling merchants, so holds onto it until the weather gets better so that he can go to a larger town to sell it, but in the mean time he makes a discovery, instead of it projecting a hologram it hatches out a Dragon.

All his life Eragon has heard tales of wonder about the Jedi Order known as the Dragon Riders from a crazy old story teller called Brom aka Ben Kenobi aka Obi Wan aka Gandalf, they were basically wiped out many years ago by the now king, the evil Darth Galbatorix, a Rider who fell to the dark side after his dragon was killed by Urgals, they are sort of like Orcs but with horns.

It is believed that the King hunted down all the Dragons and their riders, so this is the most amazing thing that has ever happened in Eragon's life to date, he keeps the Dragon hatchling a secret from everyone. He tries to glean information from the old story teller because he seems to know a lot of stuff about Dragons and riders, and secretly visits his rapidly growing dragon whenever he can.

After a while the Ringwraith Stormtroopers come to town and very seriously injure Eragon's uncle and burn down his house whilst looking for information on the mysterious stone droid egg ring, Eragon gets away on the dragon but is injured by riding her without a saddle and staggers back into town with his dying uncle, who after a while drops dead when his wounds can not be healed.

Eragon once recovered enough to travel steals a few supplies and tries to sneak out of town to save the village and his dragon, the plan is to then when stronger get revenge, but is stopped by Brom who decides to accompany him on his journey.

The Story takes on more of an original life of its own after that, the plot thickens and becomes an enjoyable adventure, the parallels between this and other tales begin to be forgotten as characters and plot points are fleshed out. I particularly like the way Magic basically works, to do something with magic takes the same amount of energy the task would take to complete if you just went an physically did it, if the spell takes more energy than you can provide to it you die. A clever magician will find the way to do his work using the least amount of energy to do it, and that is where the real skill in casting spells is at.

I assume the book will have many more readers once the hype starts for the film in a similar fashion to Narnia, the Harry Potter series and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

I have just about finished reading the sequel to this novel and am looking forward to the final installment in the trilogy.