[Kotetsu]

Hey, is anyone else excited for the last book? (:

Personally, I love and hate these books at the same time.
They are unoriginal and childish at some parts, especially the first book, but I just REALLY want to know the end of the story.
(And I love Murtagh. Even more so thanks to Garrett Hedlund - but that movie... oh my god, don't mention it.)

I think it's great that an author of just 15 years managed to get his book published and turned it into this nice series.

[Yokuutsu]

I actually liked the first book. I tried reading the second and everything happened so quickly at the beginning I said screw this and stopped reading. It felt too rushed to me.

And he got it published because of his parents. Not because it is awesome or whatever. It's turned into a big profitable series, but it didn't get published because they thought it would be. Just saying.

[Kotetsu]

I know that, but he would not be INTERNATIONALLY published because of that (:
Especially not if the first book's sales had sucked.

You should continue reading the series, then. I felt that the first book was just Star Wars' storyline/characters mixed with Lord of the Rings' setting. So yeah.
After the first book, the story became more original, though.

[Yokuutsu]

Maybe that's why I liked it then. I loved LOTR and Star Wars.

But I can't get past page 50 of the second book. So to tell you the truth, I have no interest in the series. Though...at the same time I like and hate the method of doing magic in the Eragon world.

But my main problem with him getting publish? I could write awesome poems or an awesome novel and it would never get published. He could crank out an utter piece of shit and it would get published. Maybe not on a mass scale, but it would have a better chance of getting published than my awesome stuff.

[Kotetsu]

Well, in the world of literature it is the same like EVERYWHERE. You either have to be lucky, know the right people or have money.
If you have neither, then you're screwed. *shrug* That's how it works, I don't mind.

Why do you hate the way magic is done? I thought it was a clever way.
And at least SOMEWHAT original, even if the idea was "stolen" as well.

Yeah, I love Star Wars and LotR as well.
That's why I disliked that part. I don't enjoy my favourite moves (SW) being copied. XD

[Yokuutsu]

I mind since I want to be published but never will be. So there goes one dream down the tube pretty much.

Because that limits the magic even more. One can have the ability but never be able to use it because you must use its true name like in A wizard of Earthsea. Except in that one, they had people who could teach you.

I don't think it really copied star wars IMO because....I don't see light sabers or jedi mind tricks....or anything that's in there except (and I haven't read far) that that dude is Murtagh's father (and probably Eragon's too)

[Kotetsu]

If you give up on a dream so easily, of course you won't make it.
Work hard, earn some money and publish it yourself. Publishing a book is NOT more expensive than a car xP

Okay, copied:

Eragon = Luke
A farm boy who grew up at his uncle's place somewhere in the middle of nowehere because his parents have "mysteriously" disappeared/are dead.

Brom = Obi-Wan
A teacher / friend of the farm boy's father who randomly appears, saves the farm boy from the Empire and takes him to more or less save the world.

Magic = The Force
Okay, that is easy.

Dragon = Lightsaber
The new "weapon".

Murtagh = Leia (lol)
The person who meets the farm boy and helps him on his quest to fight the Empire. Lost sibling with an evil father.

The Empire = The Empire (duh xD)

Galbatorix = The Emperor

Morzan = Darth Vader / Anakin
The guy who became a traitor and killed the other members of his order.

The Varden = The Rebel Alliance
The guys who fight the Empire and want the farm boy to help them.

Hmmmm... no, nothing copied except for everything. XD
Star Wars is sci-fi / FANTASY, so you just replace the Galaxy with Alagaesia and there you go.

[Yokuutsu]

Dragons and lightsabers do not equal the same thing. They're too different to compare. Lightsabers, when damaged, can be repaired. A dragon? Not always. They can die along with the people that ride them. Magic does not equal the force since with the force you don't need to know a name to do things with it. You can just do it cause you have the force.

From what I've seen you can't compare Morzan to Anakin. (I might be getting people confused) Is it him or someone else who's dragon got killed/died and they stole? whatever? another? Because if it was him....you can't compare either. Anakin was an idiot who believed the Emperor Palpatine (I can't remember his Chancellor's name)when he should've realized that the path he was going down would cause the things in the dream considering the dream did not change at all as he went down the path. But he's a rash young adult and so didn't see it. Losing a dragon that has been connected to you for YEARS mentally....never been alone thanks to that...and suddenly it has gone all silent in your head? That could easily drive a man insane I believe. (Or was is Galbatorix that that happened to? I can't remember now...It has been so long .-.)

The way you're looking at it....everything is copying everything else. Nothing is going to completely original...unless you can come up with a new gender which still wouldn't be original since everything we come up with is somehow based on real life in one way or another. So, it's all been done before.

[Sadrain]

I never liked first book. xD I didn't think of Star Wars (for the most part), but it copied Lord of the Rings to nearly place descriptions and conversations in few places and some character feels, too. xD
The next books never got translated here, so I have not had the chance to read them.
They are... okay, but nothing spectacular.

[Hokan-jin]

I don't know if I am excited or worried. I have the first three book and the first two weren't that bad but near the end of the third...well I hope it doesn't end up like the 50 cent sci-fi novels in used book stores. Not that some of those aren't good I just have higher hopes for this series. (although I have to agree the movie is just...-shudder-it should even be affiliated)

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Yokuutsu, I think the point you may be trying to touch on involves the mytho-archetypes of the hero story that are ingrained in the human consciousness (as Campbell explores in "The Hero With a Thousand Faces". You can see similar stories arising in different areas of the world, at different time periods with no cultural diffusion between them. Hence them being part of what it is to be human on some fundamental level -- or that's what he says, at least.)

But anyway, the point is more that George Lucas (allegedly) read Campbell and incorporated those resonate archetypes into Star Wars, while Paolini (though he may or may not have read Campbell) followed in the generation after those norms were established as the framework for the fantasy genre, and hence ended up borrowing from authors who'd borrowed from Campbell, which makes his work seem rather derivative.

Granted, I've never read the books, but I've read summaries of them and followed several debates similar to this one, not to mention seeing that... thing they inflicted upon cinema audiences. So I'm not really going to weigh in on any specific details, or even take one side or the other, but I will just note that in the current literary zeitgeist of the fantasy genre, it's pretty much impossible to be original if your story resembles the Hero's Journey at all. But, on the other hand, originality isn't completely necessary in this case, since people have been enjoying such stories since the dawn of language itself, and they continue to resonate with something fundamental in our world-views.

I will also note that I do not believe, at all, that any 15-year-old (that was how old he was when he wrote it, yes?) is capable of writing a moving, original, masterfully-crafted piece of fiction. There simply isn't enough life-experience available at that point to have all the requisite skills and the insight into the craft of storytelling necessary to achieve something like that. Not to mention, a teenager is more than likely not going to be able to self-edit to the degree required to produce competent prose. It's a skill that takes years of honing, and it's rather simple logic that an older writer will be better at it than a younger writer.

Of course, that brings up the fact that Paolini is in his mid-20s now, yes? My personal theory would be that the effect of his success has insulated him from criticism or any drive to improve his craft, keeping him in a stasis where that teenage boy's skill at writing has not significantly evolved, even with a decade or more's opportunity to do so. This is something you see with a lot of authors as they become successful -- their fame reduces the publisher's interest in providing them editors since they know the books will sell anyway, so the authors' works have a tendency to actually deteriorate with time. See: Robert Jordan, George R. R. Martin, and many others.

Also, I will add my personal belief that monetary success is wholly divorced from the literary value of a work. The vast, vast majority of the book-buying public is not going into a book to examine it critically for its merits as a work of literature. Of course, you could argue that a "good story" or even the concept of "good" is a paradigm dependent on the perspective of a cultural majority, but I think I've said enough for the moment in this miniature essay. :p

[Kotetsu]

Originally Posted by Yokuutsu

Dragons and lightsabers do not equal the same thing. They're too different to compare. Lightsabers, when damaged, can be repaired. A dragon? Not always. They can die along with the people that ride them. Magic does not equal the force since with the force you don't need to know a name to do things with it. You can just do it cause you have the force.

From what I've seen you can't compare Morzan to Anakin. (I might be getting people confused) Is it him or someone else who's dragon got killed/died and they stole? whatever? another? Because if it was him....you can't compare either. Anakin was an idiot who believed the Emperor Palpatine (I can't remember his Chancellor's name)when he should've realized that the path he was going down would cause the things in the dream considering the dream did not change at all as he went down the path. But he's a rash young adult and so didn't see it. Losing a dragon that has been connected to you for YEARS mentally....never been alone thanks to that...and suddenly it has gone all silent in your head? That could easily drive a man insane I believe. (Or was is Galbatorix that that happened to? I can't remember now...It has been so long .-.)

The way you're looking at it....everything is copying everything else. Nothing is going to completely original...unless you can come up with a new gender which still wouldn't be original since everything we come up with is somehow based on real life in one way or another. So, it's all been done before.

You know that I was talking about the IDEAS?
The magic and dragon DOES equal the lightsaber and Force. It serves the same purposes in both stories, even if it WORKS different. =/

Morzan lost his dragon = Anakin went "insane" because he couldn't live with the thought of losing Padmé. The personality of both characters is different, but the STORY idea is the same.

No, of course there can be "original" stuff.
If he copied one thing from Star Wars, his story would be original.
But you see, for his first book he copied about EVERYTHING, changed some details about how things work and the setting and that's it.

And if you still don't see it: Christopher Paolini himself said that this is true and he took it from Star Wars. (;
So you can't really argue against it anyways, even if you don't (want to) see it.
This is not me trying to convince you - since it's a fact - I just wanted to let you know since you love Star Wars. XD

Edit:
You may find this interesting:
http://telpenori.blogspot.com/2007/0...iarism_28.html

Especially the part about magic copied from Earthsea, names copied from LotR (some even 100%) and storyline copied from Star Wars (granted, the author of the article is a bit more accurate than my comparisons were, so you have even more "proof").

Now go ahead and try telling me that Paolini did NOT copy. (:

[Quiet Man Cometh]

I think it would be better serves to say the dragon riders are the equivalent of the jedi, rather than compare weapons.

Anyway, haven't read Eragon myself. I tried a few random pages of the book and found it either dreadfully tedious, (really, I do'nt care about how corridors the party apparently walks down or turns they apparently take while going through this fortress blindfolded) or boggy and some portion to me made no sense. None of the exerpts I've read make me inclined to read it either.

I agree with comments that I read on the site "Anti-Shirtergal" or whatever it's called, can't recall the second part fully, that compares Paolini's to fan fiction written by other fifteen year olds. I've read that too and they are about the same in terms of quality.

My sister has read the series so far and she can always be counted on for an opinoin very different than mine and she said that sheh enjoyed the series and when I asked about the writing she said that she felt they were as good as any other fantasy book out there, though nothing extraordinarily special.

Suzerain's right in that monetary success does not relate to literary value. Too many thing can affect the sales of a book other than quality of writing and I think that Eragon's fame is more a result of the hype and promotion around it than the sole merit of the writing. It's hard for a book to get noticed for it's writing unless the right people read it and that's more luck of the draw.

The magic system is borrowed from LeGuin, I noticed that from reading A Wizard of Earthsea after having watched the Eragon movie, and Paolini does list LeGuin as an inspiration of his along with Lucas and Tolkein. I would say though that he borrows a bit too much from his "inspirations," patterns of mythos aside. It's one thing to follow a general line of heroic growth, it's another for the details to be so similar.

[Kotetsu]

Originally Posted by Suzerain of Sheol

Granted, I've never read the books, but I've read summaries of them and followed several debates similar to this one, not to mention seeing that... thing they inflicted upon cinema audiences.

Oh, please NEVER think the movie comes even close to the books.
Even the die-hard Eragon fanboys and fangirls loathe that movie. xD

Also: Even if you guys read Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr were better written.
The writing style in the first book was pretty bad, but in the others not so much.
But okay, I can only judge that to some extent because I read them in German, so maybe the translation did something to make it seem better in German than in English.

[Yokuutsu]

I love how you said COPIED shit could be original.

I have no reason to say anything more now.

[Kotetsu]

Uhm, no? I said his book could still be original if he took only small parts, like ONE thing, not one hundred.
Maybe ideas, not details.
The order of the Dragon Riders being there to ensure the peace OR how magic works. (Because I think it's a great idea to use words as magic and it should be used more often than this wand-waving magic xD)

Taking basic ideas and turning them into your own stuff does not equal copying an entire existing movie, with all its details and characters.

You really don't want to understand this, do you. Did you even look at the article?

You said " I don't think he copied Star Wars" and now that you were proven wrong, you don't want to see it? Oh come on, don't be childish.
I enjoyed the books and I am excited for the last one. So I'm not here to BASH the series. I don't see your problem.