Kevin's Watch

If anyone is interested here is a link to an NPR interview with Paolini.

I caught some of it the other day. Although Paolini is proud of his accomplishments, when looking back he admits Eragon could be improved. He believes he has grown as a writer and that the second book is better than the first and hopefully the third will be better than the second.

He also heaps praise upon his editor.

I'd like to heap something on Eragon all right...

Come on, do we consider ourselves literate readers or not? From all that I've heard from fellow Watchers whose literary knowledge I trust, Eragon is an insult to basic standards of grammar and just about everything else. The publishers of Eragon clearly do no seem to care about the literary quality of their product, because they're too busy making obscene amounts of money selling it. I'm completely with burgs on this matter. This goes beyond jealousy over the success of Eragon. This guy Paolini seems to be blatantly ripping off other works left and right, and he's getting away with it while laughing all the way to the bank. Burgs is right to be pissed off about seeing his fav, LOTR, ripped off so shamelessly like this. Most Covenant fans may be cool and collected now, but I wonder what their reactions would be if Paolini were to decide one day to steal whole sections of the Chronicles for his own "story" and make more millions, while SRD struggles for sales of the Last Chronicles.

Fist's comparison with Mozart is interesting, but it seems to me that Paolini would be more like Mozart taking one of Haydn's symphonies, changing a few bars here and there, then renaming the whole work as his, then selling the score to a rich patron without Haydn getting wise to the scheme. It's a matter of what is ethical. Sure, Mozart/Paolini could do that, but how do they wake up each day and look in the mirror without feeling shame? And if Paolini doesn't feel shame...then is it any wonder that I feel cynical about all this?

I stopped by my sister's house today and noticed my nephew's copy of Eragon on the table. Giving Paolini the benefit of the doubt, I resisted the urge to put the book down after the first chapter--it was really bad. I managed to get through two chapters before walking away from it.

Matrixman wrote:I'd like to heap something on Eragon all right...

After listening to that NPR interview I'd gladly help you!

A few days ago I had a dream that the moviemakers, recognizing the extreme suckitude of Eragon, had decided to spice it up a little. That spicing consisted of adding elements from Thomas Covenant, an easy task as Eragon was such a bland, generic fantasy that it was compatible with pretty much anything.

The movie had Lord Foul trying to break through a hole from another dimension defended by humans and nice dragons. There were also suspiciously intelligent horses (one was smart enough to hate Eragon) and something that I suppose were supposed to be Coursers, but they were obviously cute housecats made to look bigger through cinematic trickery so that they could be ridden by hot Elves.

It was a lousy film nevertheless in my dream, but it would have been far worse without the SRD elements, by which I mean Lord Foul.

Nerdanel wrote:A few days ago I had a dream that the moviemakers, recognizing the extreme suckitude of Eragon, had decided to spice it up a little. That spicing consisted of adding elements from Thomas Covenant, an easy task as Eragon was such a bland, generic fantasy that it was compatible with pretty much anything.

The movie had Lord Foul trying to break through a hole from another dimension defended by humans and nice dragons. There were also suspiciously intelligent horses (one was smart enough to hate Eragon) and something that I suppose were supposed to be Coursers, but they were obviously cute housecats made to look bigger through cinematic trickery so that they could be ridden by hot Elves.

It was a lousy film nevertheless in my dream, but it would have been far worse without the SRD elements, by which I mean Lord Foul.

I love it!!!

Great dream!

I'm also of the mind that there isn't an original idea or thought in Paolini's writing. Not a single one. It's derivitive, pure and simple. Not only has he stolen good story lines and plot points from far superior writers, he went on to disgrace them in a poorly written story that doesn't even manage to contain correct spelling or grammar throughout.

I think that had he handed in the manuscript of Eragon to a publisher he should have gotten a nice rejection notice suggesting that he polish his writing and work on developing his OWN ideas. Think how many good and original writers are struggling to get their novels published, and a company decides to publish these books--in my opinion--merely for the novelty of having a teenager as the author! Certainly the biqwigs had to be thinking that with the popularity of fantasy with children and teenagers, what better way to sell books than to have "one of their own" writing them?

Gah! The entire thing gets under my skin!

One of the funniest movie reviews I've seen:

www.scifi.com/sfw/screen/sfw14336.html

Khaliban wrote:One of the funniest movie reviews I've seen:

www.scifi.com/sfw/screen/sfw14336.html

Loved the review! Pretty accurate from what I've heard.

Hilarious!

Hmm, I was just looking at the actors in Eragon. I think Irons could do a fair Stannis Baratheon from Thrones, though I'll have to look at some of his work at some point.

Anyway, the main point. I'm a little disappointed by eragon fans. Check a few of the comments on this blog thingy; pretty much all are of the same general consistency as the first one. A few of them make me sad: "I failed out of school because I was reading your books" or "PLEASE READ MY BOOK MR PAOLINI". In general, though, these people are confused way too easily and don't get basic humor.

You can see my response at the bottom This article was posted in 2005, so I find it funny I'm only responding a few days after the most recent one.
elliottback.com/wp/archives/2005/11/26/ ... his-email/

And no, it isn't a joke, the author is as befuddled as I am (top part of article here).
elliottback.com/wp/index.php?s=eragon

I'm happy that Donaldson doesn't appeal to the masses too easily, at least not the 7-16 year old masses. He'd never get through the crap to answer qs on the GI.[/url]

I've read both Eragon and Eldest and enjoyed them (I know, kill the heathen!)...but seriously, If you're trying to compare Paolini with Donaldson, you're out of your mind. SRD is a master, a 15 year old could not even hope to truly delve into the finer points of the land...but diving into Alagaesia wouldn't be all that hard, no overly complex sub-plots, the writing is certainly "adolescent". I have seen not only on here, but many other boards that Inheritance is a flat out theft of Star Wars...I havn't read the star wars books, just seen the movies...could someone who is versed in Star Wars give me a clue as to what was "theived".

When it comes to comparing pop fantasy fiction with the masters, its a fruitless task. To very loosely paraphrase what i heard david dramain say at a disturbed concert "Authors like Paolini are candy, like some skittles or an almond joy. The greats like Donaldson are a 7-course steak dinner served with a 20 year old bottle of single malt scotch"

...one last thing, I think its a travesty Runes has only sold 70k copies, Donaldson is the first fantasy fiction author i ever read and because of him I became entranced in the genre.

Basically, the Loyal rogue ala Harrison Fords Star Wars Character - Thee names are eluding me right now.
The old man who sacrifices himself - obi-won and Brom.
The farm boy who must save the world, Luke and eragon. Theres a link somewhere in this thread that explains more of them.

...one last thing, I think its a travesty Runes has only sold 70k copies, Donaldson is the first fantasy fiction author i ever read and because of him I became entranced in the genre.

Really? Not Tolkien, lewis, rowling, or whoever? Really, that's quite interesting, and I imagine it made an interesting outline for your intro into the genre. I mean, I started with King Arthur, and so for me the king Arthur stories are the origin, measure, and foundation of how I've looked at the rest of fantasy. I would imagine most Donaldson readers have read some other stuff first. Pretty cool.

Basically, the Loyal rogue ala Harrison Fords Star Wars Character - Thee names are eluding me right now.
The old man who sacrifices himself - obi-won and Brom.
The farm boy who must save the world, Luke and eragon. Theres a link somewhere in this thread that explains more of them.

EDIT-Lets not forget that Lucas stole a number of those archetypes from Haruki Murakami's Hidden Fortress.

I think it's important to remember that deriving stuff from other works is the life and blood of literature, and often movies and other medias as well. The Renaissance Movement was not simply inspired by Greece and by Rome - at its core, it was imitation of the ideals of those times, even though it in many ways moved beyond that. Even Christianity's development during the medieval ages was an imitation of the conceptual ideas behind earlier parts of Greek art, where archetypes became important; the good shepherd, the cross shaped church, etc, etc, which use symbolism.

The important thing is to add something else substantial, besides simple attention to the genre; personally, I felt that Paolini didn't really do that, but I'll never claim I'm definitely right about that.

Hell, fist and faith has said something quite similar already, but I'm already done so I'll post it anyway.

Holsety wrote:

...one last thing, I think its a travesty Runes has only sold 70k copies, Donaldson is the first fantasy fiction author i ever read and because of him I became entranced in the genre.

Really? Not Tolkien, lewis, rowling, or whoever? Really, that's quite interesting, and I imagine it made an interesting outline for your intro into the genre. I mean, I started with King Arthur, and so for me the king Arthur stories are the origin, measure, and foundation of how I've looked at the rest of fantasy. I would imagine most Donaldson readers have read some other stuff first. Pretty cool.

Without thread-jacking too much, I never picked up a novel that wasn't assigned as course work until my freshman year of college. My roomate had The Wounded Land and suggested that I read Covenant. I had come to college amid some serious family turmoil and Covenant's character had spoke to me in many ways and really gave me a profound love of fantasy fiction, so much so in fact that its the only genre i'll buy books in. When SRD is your birth into literature, much of what comes after him fails to measure up. Even after i finally read LOTR, elements of the Chronicles were much more beautiful and profound to me than middle earth. So, when i read other works in the genre, i try not to put pressure on the author to live up to SRD, because 99.999% of the time, they won't even come close to the chronicles and i'd rather enjoy the story for the story and not what it contributes to the genre.

Ok, I really hate to hate on an author, who's been beaten on by pretty much every poster, again. But I remembered another reason why I disliked Eldest.

Basically, Eragon goes to train in elfland so that he can get stronger. He goes there and this elf warrior dude kicks his ass, over and over. After a while of working his weak little human heart out and training...he's still getting his ass kicked. The training makes him a tad better, but he's not really improved enough to do anything.

Don't worry though, magic trees will save the day. During a celebration ceremony of some holiday or magical occurrence or something, he gets transformed by a tree IIRC into a human-elf thingy that's really strong. He beats the elf warrior and now he's really awesome. He totally kicks ass. Thank god for magic trees pulling such a pitiable little human up to par; without magic trees, he'd be doomed.

I don't think that hard work necessarily equals reward, or that it has to be for a novel to be good. But power should in some way reflect a person's actions and personality, and it shouldn't just be "well he's the main character and he needs a bit of power, so here's a tree to make him cool". It makes you feel like Erag's virtues and vices don't matter as long as a general destiny is laid out for him.

Just want to note, Eragon and Eldest have been republished over here in the UK with new, generic covers, like the ones used in the 'adult' editions of the Harry Potter books.

Murrin wrote:Just want to note, Eragon and Eldest have been republished over here in the UK with new, generic covers, like the ones used in the 'adult' editions of the Harry Potter books.

Just curious, can I see those covers?

I'm not an enormous fan of HP, but it is fun, and the american covers are fun.

(When I say they're 'like' the HP ones, I mean of course that it's a similar idea--dropping the cartoonish artwork for something more stylish and iconic, and less obviously fantasy.)

New Eragon/Eldest covers:
www.amazon.co.uk/Eragon-Inheritance-Tri ... 552155519/
www.amazon.co.uk/Eldest-Inheritance-Tri ... 552155527/

And I'm not sure if you meant the HP covers, so here are the 'adult' editions I mentioned, to compare:
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
Book 6

Holsety wrote: I don't think that hard work necessarily equals reward, or that it has to be for a novel to be good. But power should in some way reflect a person's actions and personality, and it shouldn't just be "well he's the main character and he needs a bit of power, so here's a tree to make him cool". It makes you feel like Erag's virtues and vices don't matter as long as a general destiny is laid out for him.

Well said! I think it's the same reason (or one of the reasons) why I ultimately found Garion from The Belgariad to be unsatisfying as the main hero. He had very little character development, who spent most of the time being led by his Aunt Pol to his appointment with "destiny."

Anyway, back to Eragon...

dlbpharmd wrote: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.

My friend that I mentioned above finally saw Eragon on DVD last night, and said "It sucks. It f***in' sucks!" But he still says the books are great.