Okay, I have a confession: I liked Eragon the first time I read it. There, I said it. Though this was before I discovered A Song of Ice and Fire and the Malazan Book Of The Fallen... so it's dreck now. I'm not looking forward to doing this, so I'll just say it's FOR SCIENCE!

Massive spoilers here. I'll be keeping count of the number of times I say IDIOT!, SUE!, SCIENCE ALARM! and UNPRONOUNCEABLE!

Prologue

It starts out unpromising enough: "Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world". The fuck does that mean? A scent that changed the world? Anyway, there's something called a Shade here, trying to stop whoever is coming. There's some orc-like creatures called Urgals as well (Urgals?? Hah!). We also get some oxymorons and unnecessary detail here: "a wire-thin scratch curved down the blade [of the Shade's sword]", and said sword is "thin enough to slip between a pair of ribs, yet stout enough to hack through the stoutest armor". All this is the first page, by the way.

On page 2, the big tough manly Urgals get scared shitless of an owl, and we learn that one of them crushed a twig (whoa, ya don't say!). The thing the Shade was waiting for comes along now: three elves, who sound almost exactly like Tolkein's elves. The first elf's build is "slim but strong, like a rapier" (rapiers aren't that strong, Paolini), and his arrows are for some unnecessary reason fletched with swan feathers. Two of them are guarding an elven lady who keeps looking at a pouch in her lap "as if to reassure herself it was still there" (foreshadowing, perhaps?). The guards switch places for some reason, then they walk down the pathway safely until the horses are spooked by the Urgals' stench, which as described on page 2 is "like fetid meat".

The guards turn around, but the lady runs ahead of the people who are protecting her (IDIOT!). The Shade jumps out of his hiding place and shouts "Garjzla!" (UNPRONOUNCEABLE!), killing her horse. As the horse falls, the lady somehow vaults out of the saddle (SCIENCE ALARM!). The Urgals shoot the guards with their bows, and the lady runs away. The Urgals chase after her, but the Shade climbs up a jutting piece of granite. Considering he can see over the whole forest, it must have taken him hours to get up (SCIENCE ALARM!). Poor, tired Urgals. He shouts "Istalri boetk!" (DOUBLE UNPRONOUNCEABLE!, since the last "i" has an accent) and sets the forest on fire, despite the fact this would be counterproductive to the Urgals (IDIOT!).

He sees three Urgals get wounded by the elf lady, then jumps roughly a quarter of a mile to land in front of her (SCIENCE ALARM!) It also mentions that the rock juts twenty feet up, so the trees must be rather stunted if he could see all of them. For some reason, the elf takes what she was protecting - a large sapphire stone - out of her pouch, and drops it (IDIOT!). The Shade casts Garjzla (UNPRONOUNCEABLE!) again, which leaves the elf unconscious despite killing her horse (SCIENCE ALARM!). The Shade throws his sword away where it sticks in the tree (SCIENCE ALARM!), then kills all the Urgals for some reason (IDIOT!). The unconscious elf's beauty "would have entranced any mortal man", but "held no charm for him" (SUE!). Then he rides away, on a horse that was never mentioned before, presumably to get the stone.

IDIOT! count: 4

UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 4

SCIENCE ALARM! count: 5

SUE! count: 1

Not a good start.

edited 1st Sep '09 3:21:24 AM by Yon Troper

Chapter 1: Discovery

We see our "hero", Eragon (one SUE! in advance), sitting in a bed of grass scanning some deer tracks. I can see how he'd know it was still with the herd (lots of tracks), but somehow he knows that the deer was in the meadow half an hour ago, that it will sleep soon, and that it is a small doe with a limp in her left forefoot (SUE!). Anyway, he's probably a peasant, since his clothes are "worn from work", but he's got a wood-frame pack and a bow (SCIENCE ALARM!).

He's out in a mountain range called the Spine, which are supposed to be kind of spooky (even though we never see anything happening there), but he doesn't fear them (SUE!), and we also learn the land is called Alagaesia (just for the unnecessary umlaut over the "e", UNPRONOUNCEABLE!). Anyway, Eragon is apparently also psychic, since he only needs to look at the tracks occasionally, and he seems to know exactly where the deer is going to rest (I'm being kind, so only one SUE!). At the wood where the deer are going, he takes three arrows out, nocks one, and holds the other two, since he apparently has three hands (SCIENCE ALARM!). He walks up to the deer who, whaddaya know, are right there.

The herd bolts, and a "fiery wind" surges past Eragon's cheek, since apparently the deer are on fire. Eragon runs at the deer, stops, and fires at the doe (SCIENCE ALARM!), but misses. But apparently the deer aren't on fire, because the stone is right where the deer were (coincidence? I think not), and the elf lady must have teleported some flames away along with the egg. You know, that... actually makes sense. I'm confused.

I also need to dedicate a paragraph to describing this stone. Mist (not smoke, for some reason), swirls "insubstantial tendrils" over the stone (if they're insubstantial, why bother mentioning them?). The stone is "frictionless" under Eragon's fingers, so he should have dropped it (SCIENCE ALARM!), and it "weighed several pounds, but felt lighter than it should have" (how does he it's several pounds?). You know, for improbability, I'll declare the rock a SUE!

Anyway, he wonders whether to take it, where it comes from, does it have a purpose, was he meant to have it (coincidence? I think not), yada yada yada. "Something stays his hand" (coincidence? etc.), and he takes it, and camps. End of chapter. At least it's shorter than the prologue.

IDIOT! count: 4

UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 5

SCIENCE ALARM! count: 9

SUE! count: 6

So, improbable archery skillz, a destiny, and everyone so far getting at least one IDIOT! I can't wait to read more...

Sometimes I feel a little guilty for judging things without reading them myself, and basing my opinion only on the opinion of the internet. And by that I am specifically talking about Twilight and Eragon.

But a liveblog of Twilight cured that for me, and this is sure to do the trick for this as well.

Good going. So I'll just say: "Alagaesia" sounds like a nasty neurological disorder (which, given all the "IDIOT!"s, might be more apropos than it seems). It's like someone switched his copy of Lord Of The Rings with "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat".

Given the number of coincidences so far, you should have a counter for that, too.

Yeah, I liked it the first time too. But then I had no critical abilities then.

Okay, starting a COINCIDENCE? counter as well. It currently stands at four.

Chapter 2: Palancar Valley (At least this book has one pronounceable place name.)

It's the next day. Eragon doesn't see any new details (aren't you supposed to look for them somewhere else? IDIOT!), so he starts going home. He has porridge for breakfast, but I hope he likes water and dry oats, since there's no mention of him making a fire. Unless the area's still hot, but probably not, so SCIENCE ALARM!. Anyhow, blah blah blah, Paolini goes on about how the Spine is still spooky and nobody goes there because it's spooky, except Eragon cos he's a speshul SUE! Also, we learn the king is called Galbatorix, which sounds like something out of Asterix the Gaul. Eragon camps by the Anora River (pronounceability, yay!), and watches the moon rise for some reason before sleeping.

He spends the next day travelling back to his village, which is called Carvahall, by the Igualda Falls (one UNPRONOUNCEABLE!). Apparently, the chimney smoke is "defiant". I wonder if it's going to rebel against King Asterix? We get a description of the village. This is Medieval European Fantasy, so you'd think that (apart from the local lord) the villagers would be poor peasants. But no, they have "stout log buildings", with porches. Also, though the rebellious smoke is white earlier, it's black now.

Eragon goes to the butcher's to give him meat (or, rather, a rock). Sloan (the butcher), is obviously evul, because he's rude to our hero Mary. Eragon tries to trade the rock for meat, even though the IDIOT! has no idea if it's worth anything. Eragon says he found it in the Spine, so Sloan kicks him out, calling the rock a "sorcerer's stone" (Harry Potter, yay!). Then Horst the village smith shows up with Sloan's daughter Katrina and pays for a pile of meat for Eragon (SUE! and COINCIDENCE?).

Horst offers for Eragon to pay the debt back to him by working as an assistant smith, despite the fact his family are farmers, and thus probably don't know what to do (IDIOT!) Eragon gets home to his uncle Garrow and tells Horst to give Katrina a message that his brother Roran that he loves her (awwwww!). The family apparently have two horses, a cow and an unspecificed number of chickens, despite the fact that a real peasant would be lucky to own one cow (SCIENCE ALARM!).

Garrow goes off on Eragon for letting Horst pay for the meat, despite the fact they would have starved without him (IDIOT!). Garrow looks interested in the rock, with a "hungry look on his face became ravenous", and the two of them decide to sell the stone, which is worth -1 IDIOT! But then Eragon goes to his OWN ROOM, with his OWN BED, which a peasant WOULD NOT HAVE (SCIENCE ALARM!), and falls asleep.

IDIOT! count: 7

UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 6

SCIENCE ALARM! count: 12

SUE! count: 8

COINCIDENCE? count: 5

Well, everyone says this book had an Idiot Plot and a Mary Sue. It's also You Fail Feudalism Forever. Come on, his own bed? These guys would be about as wealthy as the reeve or the miller!

The Unpronounceables never bothered me, but then again I read HP Lovecraft and it's full of that, as is pretty much half of anything involving magic that comes with incantations (the other half of course being Canis Latinicus or Order Of The Stick-style "I shout the name of the spell"). But the rest I'm with you 100%.

Your sacrifice will benefit the Many. Continue.

OMG YES

This will be fun

The unpronounceables never bothered you? Have you ever tried saying "Garjzla"? Or "fethrblaka, eka weohnata neiat haina ono?"

GARRZZH-la. I'd pronounce it with the "j" sort of sliding into the "z" sound. Or maybe GARRJ-zzla.

Feather-BLAH-ka EE-ka weh-oh-NAH-ta NEE-at HIGH-nah OH-no.

edited 2nd Sep '09 3:04:35 PM by Axioanarchist

Chapter 3: Dragon Tales

Eragon wakes up, and we get a description of the room. He has some shelves, a dresser and a nightstand. Seriousy, I cannot get past all of this supposed wealth. No more SCIENCE ALARM!s for every one now on, it'd get boring - only one for every two instances of this. We also get some backstory on Sue while Eragon contemplates his navel. Sixteen years ago his mother Selena came to Carvahall pregnant, gave the baby to Garrow with no explanation of why he should take it (IDIOT!), called him Eragon and left.

We also meet Eragon's cousin/adoptive brother Roran. Roran gets all pissy with Eragon because he told Horst to deliver a message, even though Horst seems the most likeable character in the book (IDIOT!), and Eragon shows Roran the rock. The family goes out into the field, and it mentions that they harvest squash, rutabagas, beets, peas, turnips and beans. That's two instances of oddly rich peasants now, so SCIENCE ALARM! The next day they all go to a bunch of travelling merchants, hoping to get supplies for winter. The horses are apparently heavy enough to have pounded the snow into a glassy surface (SCIENCE ALARM!).

Garrow and Eragon find Merlock, a trader specializing in jewelry. Merlock records its measurements etc., and finds that it's hollow and makes a ringing sound. Massive spoiler: it's a dragon egg. Well, there's a frikkin' dragon on the cover! Way to give away the "twist"! They don't say this, but anyhoo. Merlock says it isn't worth the risk of buying the egg, and explains why the traders were late. The attacks of something called the Varden have increased, and Urgals (still sounds funny!) are migrating towards the Hadarac Desert for some reason. Also, King Asterix spotted a Shade (COINCIDENCE?). The Urgals are rampaging, destroying fields, blah blah blah, exit Merlock.

Eragon gets a cherry pie and some candy, watches two boys wrestling, then he sees evul Sloan walking along and Sue ducks into Morn's tavern... for some reason. Two evul traders are in there, saying that the Varden (whoever they are, but it sure sounds like warden. COINCIDENCE?) have formed a pack with the Urgals (hah!) to attack Carvahall. Apparently, the Varden are La Resistance. Guess King Asterix is evil.

Anyhow, Sue challenges the two traders and asks them to prove that they aren't lying. The fat one (oh, did I mention one of them's fat? He is) says that "Its only common sense." What kind of IDIOT! answer is that? All the villagers seem to support Eragon as well, so SUE! Eragon goes, watches Roran kiss Katrina, and they and Garrow have dinner at Horst's. Horst's a simple village smith, but he sure seems to have a lot of cordials and ale, so SCIENCE ALARM!

The family watches some people tell stories, then Brom, Carvahall's storyteller, comes up and gives us an origin story for King Asterix.

There used to be some people called the Dragon Riders who protected Alagaesia, and they had super strength and maaaa-giiiic and immortality and stuff (SUE!). They kept peace, but if it was that peaceful already, why did they need to keep peace? Anyway, Asterix comes in from somewhere called Inzilbeth (due to the ^'ed "e", UNPRONOUNCEABLE!), and he joins up, but the IDIOT! rides off to Urgal-land with some friends. All their dragons and his friends die, and Asterix goes nuts and is kicked out of the Dragon Riders.

Asterix kills an elder Dragon Rider and runs away. He makes a disciple of another DR called Morzan, and we learn that the empire's capital is called Uru'baen (two UNPRONOUNCEABLE!s, for the ^'ed final "u" and the apostrophe). Anyway, they go there and get a dragon hatchling, use the dark maaaaa-giiiiiiiic Asterix learned from a Shade back when he killed the elder, and eventually they start slaughtering the D Rs. Twelve of them join up with Asterix and Morzan, and call themselves the Thirteen Forsworn, which doesn't sound like Jordan's Thirteen Forsaken at all. Asterix kills the leader by kicking him in the balls, then becomes the only king ever to rule an empire. End of chapter.

IDIOT! count: 11

UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 7

SCIENCE ALARM! count: 14

SUE! count: 10

COINCIDENCE? count: 6

Sadly, that could have been a reasonably interesting origin story...

edited 3rd Sep '09 5:27:16 AM by Yon Troper

xD

I think you might be a bit harsh with some of the IDIOT! points, some are arguably justifiable.

Though wait 'til you get to Brisingr, It Gets Worse.

Yeah, I can't imagine King Asterix having anything but a winged helmet for a crown.

Alright, sorry about not updating for a week.

Chapter 4: Fate's Gift

The next day, Eragon hits the egg with two hammers and a chisel. It makes a ringing sound like Merlock (who sure was a necessary character, right?) said, and it doesn't chip or scratch. He also hears a squeak (COINCIDENCE?). He starts contemplating his navel again, wondering who sent it there and if he was meant to have it (COINCIDENCE?). Honestly, does he have to do this all the time?

That night Eragon gets woken up by a squeak, and it's too loud for a mouse or rat. Apparently the wall and floors are solid wood, so whatever it is can't be in there. The squeak appears to be coming from the egg, which "ignores his furious glare". Well it might not, Eragon, in other circumstances. The stone doesn't do anything except keep cheeping and keeping Mary awake like the physics-defying asshole it is.

He wakes up AGAIN later, and the egg's rocking back and forth. It somehow rolls onto the floor, and it goes toward Eragon. The dragon's probably shoving it like a hamster ball, but how is it doing that if it's attached to the yolk, hmmm (SCIENCE ALARM!)? The egg cracks in Eragon's hand, and the dragon we see on the cover hatches.

Well, that chapter was extraordinarily short, so I'll do the next one as well.

Chapter 5: Awakening

We get a description of the dragon here. It's the same color as the stone. "But not a stone, he realized, an egg." Should have noticed from the squeaking, Mary (IDIOT!). For some reason, we also have to know that its claws are slightly serrated, and that it has a clarger than normal gap between its back spines. Wait, how would Eragon know that (SCIENCE ALARM!)? The dragon stumbles around the room with its mouth open like a baby bird, and it tugs at Eragon's sleeve (oh, how KEEEYOOOOTE!!). Eragon reaches out to touch the dragon, and something happens to him.

A "blast of icy energy surged into his hand and raced up his arm, burning in his veins like liquid fire". Oxymoron alert. We also get another oxymoron when he hears "a soundless scream of rage". Eventually, he gets control back, and his palm has formed a diffused white oval, a phrase which here means "a white oval spread over an area". Since Paolini doesn't seem to know what things mean, he's an IDIOT! Now Eragon feels like an invisible wall surrounding his thoughts has fallen away, and that he might float away as a spirit. Maybe he's got Powers of Plot Advancement now (SUE!). There's also some kind of invisible tendril touching his thoughts, and he can tell that the dragon's hungry. He feeds it some dried meat. That makes sense. In the movie, Eragon tried to put milk in a sack and make the dragon drink it. But meat seems like something a dragon would eat. -1 IDIOT!

The dragon falls asleep on Eragon's impossible bed, with its throat vibrating. Now I can only think of it as Dildo-Neck. LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, PAOLINI! Eragon tries to decide whether to keep Dildo-Neck, and he decides to, cuz he wants to be a speshul Dragon Rider. To hide it from Garrow and Roran, he takes it out into the woods, where he harnesses it to a tree and builds a shelter for it. He also finds out he can control the dragon to stay. Roll over, Dildo-Neck! Shake hands! Speak!

Eragon dumps the egg fragments, presumably does farming stuff for the rest of the day, then goes back to the woods to check on Dildo-Neck. It can seemingly gets its own food, despite being harnessed to the tree (SCIENCE ALARM!). He also tries to see if Dildo-Neck (or Dildira, as I will to refer to her, and since it is named on the back as "Saphira") is a he or a she. And as blurbs always spoil, we know it's "she". Then he talks to Dildira, who seems to understand him, then has nightmares about bears and wolves eating her.

Dildira's safe (thank God! Who'd want the driving plot of this horrible book to get eaten?), and Eragon gets into a routine of "attacking" his chores. (My name is Eragon. You're dirty. Prepare to be CLEANED!) Dildira grows rapidly, getting as tall as Eragon's shoulder in a month, and the mental contact grows so Dildira and Eragon can have "mute conversations". Oh, so he was meant to have it after all! And here I thought all that navel gazing was for nothing! Non-idiotically, Eragon decides to learn more about Dildara, so he decides to visit Brom the story teller. When he touches her before going off to see Obi - er, I mean Brom, he keeps hearing his name. It's only now I realized his name is "dragon" with one different letter. (COINCIDENCE? SUE!, because of the Meaningful Name.) End of chapter.

• IDIOT! count: 12
• UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 7
• SCIENCE ALARM! count: 17
• SUE! count: 12
• COINCIDENCE? count: 10

I hate to say it, but Paolini isn't racking up as many of these. Come on, do worse!

edited 9th Sep '09 2:18:19 AM by Yon Troper

I'm reading a liveblog of a book I've never read—what's more a book I've never read just because of the title. I don't like judging books I've never read either, but I could come up with something that wasn't narmy.

The only bit of the series I have read was on this page: [1] And so I discover that I enjoy me some Ho Yay—not the intended purpose of the writing at all.

A friend of mine kept pressuring me to read this. When I read him off part of our page on it, he responded with something like "Oh, those people are just looking for bad things to say about it."

Still haven't read it. Don't intend to. Ever.

More importantly, loving your live-bloggening of it. Though he's not racking up as many SUE!s and UNPRONOUNCEABLE!s as I expected, 12 and 7 in 5 chapters is still pretty bad.

King Asterix? You missed a vital opportunity to reference Vitalstatistix! Have the evil king fall off his shield constantly!

But anyways, I'm loving this livebloggening. I like reading the warnings in a dramatic tone.

edited 12th Sep '09 10:11:21 PM by Magus

I agree with the whole "looking for bad things to say about it". That's the whole point of doing this! Not that we have to look very hard.

'Sides, it's funnier that way. (I really need to learn how to pothole...)

edited 17th Sep '09 2:44:02 PM by premier666

Try Text Formatting Rules.

• facepalm* Forgot all about Vitalstatistix... besides, it would be too long to type. I'm lazy.

Chapter 6: Tea for Two Huge massive infodump chapter coming up here.

Eragon goes to Brom's house. Brom apparently has a "proud" eagle nose (I wonder if it's defiant as well?) "dominating" his face (ah, he's one of those...). He lets Eragon in, and Eragon asks a lot of questions. I can just make a bulleted list out of Brom's answers, as this is really just one huge infodump.

• Dragons apparently have no beginning or end, and lived in Alagaesia before anyone else, including the elves.
• These elves are known as the "fair folk", because they are more graceful than any others in Alagaesia (sounds like Tolkein, eh?). They sailed to Alagaesia in silver ships (SCIENCE ALARM! Salt tarnishes silver!), from a place called "Alalea" (for the umlaut, UNPRONOUNCEABLE! Paolini likes his unnecessary umlauts.)
• The elves originally regarded the dragons as animals, until an elven youth hunted down a dragon and killed it. This means a SCIENCE ALARM!, since if dragons are so tough, how'd he kill it?
• In revenge, the dragons attacked the elves. The elves couldn't find a way to communicate with the dragons, so they had to fight to defend themselves. After five years, an elf named (oh god, I have to steel myself to type this)... ERAGON found a dragon egg. (double SUE! and also a COINCIDENCE?)
• Eragon the first hatches his dragon, raises it, names it Bid'Daum and together, they convince the dragons to make peace with the elves.
• The elves set up the Dragon Riders to make sure war doesn't break out again. See, I call bullshit on this, because (I repeat myself) why did there need to be people to defend the land if it was so peaceful?? (Paolini's an IDIOT!)
• It also took humans another three hundred years to come from... wherever, and join the Riders. Eragon gets an IDIOT! point, because he blurts out, "We've always lived in Palancar Valley!"
• The dwarves also tunnelled underground and sealed the entrances when it became clear Asterix was going to win the war with the Riders. Pussy crybaby dwarves.
• Brom doesn't know how many dragons survived Asterix's slaughter, despite knowing where the elves came from and stuff. He's got to be Really Seven Hundred Years Old.
• Dragons also grew to the size of small hills. Eragon sensibly (-1 IDIOT!) wonders where he can hide it. They can't breathe fire until they're six months old, when they can mate. This is how I first guessed Brom was a dragon rider. Obviously! COINCIDENCE?
• Brom asks how Eragon knows their scales shine like gems, and he freezes up before lying, "A trader". Why bring it up then? IDIOT! The rider also can't hear the dragon's thoughts, but WHAT WAS ERAGON DOING EARLIER? SCIENCE ALARM!
• Dragons die when their riders do, but the riders are immortal unless killed, because of the dragons' magic. They also have better eyesight, strength and reflexes than other humans, and end up with pointy ears.
• Eragon gets an IDIOT!, because he goes, "Were dragons very smart?" So he's amnesiac. Brom tells him some names of dragons, and Eragon goes away. One of them is Saphira (COINCIDENCE?).

• IDIOT! count: 15
• UNPRONOUNCEABLE! count: 8
• SCIENCE ALARM! count: 20
• SUE! count: 14
• COINCIDENCE? count: 13

Well, that's more like it.

Wow. That's just lazy.

On the other hand, if he'd said "And so he became a great hero, so great that his name is commonly used today; in fact, a variation on it is even the human word for dragon!" it would have been...well, moderately less dumb.

But he didn't, so it's ultradumb.

That would only reduce the dumb factor by one half of one point.

You missed a SUE! on the second-to-last point of the infodump.

Whoa; is that the whole plot they just gave away...? It's like a movie trailer...that also does that.

A disappointing chapter in general...no homoeroticism.

Okay, I'm definately going to follow this thread.

@AFGNCAAP: I've never read Eragon, either. Sometimes I wonder if I should just for laughs.