Eragon/Eldest Poll

[burgs]

You have to wonder. I was reading a particularly bad passage of Eragon to a friend to prove my point, and he essentially asked the same question.

And that's what kept running through my head while reading it. Hello? Morgothar? Ellessari? (sp? hehe) Is anyone editing that book that's actually read fantasy??

[duchess of malfi]

I often think that same question, too, when authors go into long digressions that go no where and are of no service to the book. Shouldn't one of the jobs of an editor be to suggest that some passages be cut in service to the plot and the story?

When you think that something as good as Gilden Fire ends up in the waste basket and then you turn around and read some of the best selling fantasy books being sold nowadays, and their chapter after chapter of digressions...it really makes you wonder.

Not to mention what I pointed out in the last post, where it really seemed to me that an author just cut and pasted long scenes from previous books and plunked them down into her newest book... Did an editor even read the content of that puppy and the previous books in that series???? Sure, they were just orgy scenes, and there might be only so many ways you could write an orgy scene with the same characters, but still....

[burgs]

Honestly, duchess, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's exactly what's going on. Companies are cutting corners everywhere. Quality continues to plummet.

[Dragonlily]

ERAGON made my editor finger really itchy.

According to Paolini's website, his parents did the editing. It certainly doesn't look like a professional editor went over it after the publishing house bought it. I sure hope pros did some work on ELDEST

[duchess of malfi]

I wish you could have edited it, Joy. You very well might have polished up that very rough pebble into something a lot more readable, if not a shiny pretty.

[burgs]

Eldest was no better than Eragon. In many ways it was far worse, in terms of editing and overall quality.

There was an entire storyline that should have been completely eliminated, IMHO, because 1) it added nothing to the overall story; and 2) it was unbelievable.

[Matthias]

sheesh, I had planned on reading Eragon, but i've seen so many...mm shall we say, criticisms from so many people that i've almost changed my mind about it...

[burgs]

Good thing. They're both awful. You've already seen the story anyway, in Star Wars and LOTR. And a bit of Eddings. And McCaffrey. Etc.

Don't waste a penny.

Ho ho ho, Happy Holidays!!!

[duchess of malfi]

sheesh, I had planned on reading Eragon, but i've seen so many...mm shall we say, criticisms from so many people that i've almost changed my mind about it...

On the other hand, people have varying tastes and you might enjoy them. That said, you might want to check them out from the library rather than buying them.

[Ard Rhys]

It's interesting, what you say about not knowing what do you say to a friend. My cousin's daughter was reading it, and I was horrified. I gently asked if they had read LOTR, and was surprised to hear that yes, they had, and loved it. (They are teenagers.) I asked if they had seen Star Wars. They had, and loved it.

And yet they loved this drivel and didn't see the blatant plagiarism.

Then again, I liked The Sword of Shannara the first time I read it, when I was 14. When looking back as an adult it sickened me.

If one looks at The Sword of Shannara, it becomes very apparent that Terry was heavily influeced by Fellowship. Plot point by plot point, they are very close to being identical - plagiaristic, if you will. But at the 1/3 point of the novel, it completely changes, and the rest of the novel is Terry Boroks and not plot points taken from Tolkien. I attribute this to Terry taking two years off after writing that first 1/3 and coming back to the novel not so heavily under the influence of the Master.

Then of course, there is The Elfstones of Shannara, which is a fantasy genre masterpiece, in my opinion.

Eragon, however, is unlike The Sword of Shannara in that the entire book is a ripoff, plot point by plot point. It was taken from Star Wars, with enough Colville, Feist, Eddings, and McCaffrey thrown in for kicks. I read it, felt dirty at the end. Was sent Eldest to read by the publisher before it was released and couldn't read more than 16 pages before putting it down. I realized my life is short and there are better stories told with better writing out there.

As for how Eragon came to be, it was edited by his parents but it was also edited by a Knopf/Random House editor, to the point they carved 200 pages off the book. That is quite a chunk edited out. And from what I understand through the grapevine, Eldest wasn't given enough editing time. That's the publisher's fault wanting to get the book out there for sales.

In short, the more time that passes, the more the marketing department has the power and control over whether something is published or not. It's all about angles. It hurts my head to think that way, because you'd think the one angle they'd have to start with would be, "Is the book good?" "No, then it won't be published, no matter how many angles you are bringing to the table."

[matrixman]

Geez...Ard Rhys, thanks for making me even more cynical about the publishing industry than I already am!

[burgs]

There didn't seem to be that much of a difference between Eragon and Eldest with regard to writing quality - IMHO. But I couldn't finish Eldest either. My problem was Roran, and all the stupid, inane decisions he made that should have left the entire town dead. And, once again, there was a kid who adults were defering to - for no good reason at all.

[dlbpharmd]

A friend of mine tried to get me to see Eragon a few weeks ago and I wouldn't go, mostly based on the opinions of the fine folks here at KW. Now he's after me to read the books, and I'm refusing to do that as well. He keeps telling me how great Eragon is. This the same guy who read 1st and 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and said "Meh, it's alright, I just wish Donaldson didn't over describe everything." I'll take y'all's opinions over his, thankyouverymuch.

[burgs]

dlbpharmd, I'm glad you're taking our advice. There's an entire website that's devoted to the failures of Eragon, and how Paolini has lifted the entire plot of Star Wars, and then borrowed liberally from other authors, namely Tolkien (which I consider to be the greatest sin a writer of fantasy can commit - akin to stealing Shakespeare).

And the writing - the grammar - slipping in and out of archaic English...God.

People wonder why those like myself are as angry as we are, and often say that we're jealous of such a "young kid's" success. I'm enraged because he's stolen liberally from works that are dear to my heart (LOTR especially). Eragon even exclaims, "Hellfire!" Where else have you ever heard that?

OK, I'll stop.

[Warmark]

Heh that site sounds good, got a link?

[burgs]

www.anti-shurtugal.com

[Waddley]

Very entertaining/informative site. Thanks Burgs!

[burgs]

Back to the sales of this book. Here's a post with from a reputable site (although not reputable in my eyes) regarding Eldest:

Many booksellers threw Harry Potter–style parties on August 23, the book’s laydown date. And when Eldest debuted, it promptly displaced Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Amazon.com’s list of bestselling children’s books, marking the first time since Potter’s release on July 16 that it has not rested comfortably at No. 1. (When Nielsen BookScan’s sales data is released tomorrow, Eldest is expected to dethrone Harry on The Book Standard’s charts as well.)

First, Eldest did not promptly or immediately replace HBP on Amazon or anywhere. HBP stayed very strong for quite a while. That said, we all know that when a book is first released, it sells the most copies in its first month or so. But 425,000 (while a great figure that most of us die for - and so would SRD right now) is nothing compared to HBP. It sold 10.5m right out of the gate. Over time, HBP sales fell a bit, but for the most part, for the last two years it has been easily outselling Eldest.

Irresponsible people (like whoever wrote that inane and largely incorrect post) make people believe that Eragon is as big a phenomenon, or bigger, than Harry Potter. Right. Paolini has sold maybe 3.5m books (still great and we would all love those numbers). Last I heard Rowling has sold 400m plus. She's sold more books than any writer, alive or dead. Paolini won't ever come close.

I wonder what he'll do after he's finished mining Star Wars and LOTR (primarily). What trilogy does anyone think he'll lift a plot from? It would be fascinating if he used our beloved TC Chronicles. After previous thievery, that would be ... well, I can't say it or I might be arrested. (Of course I'm not serious.)

[Fist and Faith]

I don't imagine that, when he was in his 20's and 30's, Mozart thought much of the music he wrote when he was, say, 10. It was just imitations of Haydn and others. It was certainly better than his 5yo compositions, but still, he was just learning the craft in one of the best ways people learn a craft.

Paolini may not be to writing, or fantasy, what Mozart was to music. He may be doing at 16 what Mozart did years younger. But he may become much better with more experience at writing, and more experience as a human being. He may come to view Eragon the way those here who have read it view it, and the way Mozart likely viewed his earliest works.

The "problem" is that this early, imitative work was published. Usually, as with Mozart, the early, imitative works do not become known until after the person has become famous by writing much better stuff.

Mind you, I haven't read Eragon, although I enjoyed the spectacle of the movie. I'm just saying he may become a much better writer than he currently is, and it's strange that this work managed to get published and such good pr.

[burgs]

That's certainly plausible - that he'll improve with age - but some writers never do. I don't think Terry Brooks (although he's one of the nicest people you could hope to meet) has improved much at all.