Live Blogs Shinobaka-Wryte and the Last Inheritance

Wryte2011-11-21 05:05:33

I'm gonna level with you: I am not a fan of The Inheritance Cycle. In fact, I'm the opposite: an anti-fan, and an old one at that. I was even a member of the original Anti-Shurtugal community, back in its days as a mirror forum to Shurtugal.com, as well as A-S's successor forums, Dog-Eared and Deus Ex Machina, where I was known as Shinobaka.

I first picked up the Inheritance Cycle when I was 17, and it was still the Inheritance Trilogy. Today, I am 25, and the final book of the series is resting at hand. For eight years this series has haunted my own literary aspirations, both due to the work itself, and its author, with whom I have several uncanny similarities. Besides both being fantasy writers of similar age (only three years apart), we share a first name, dark hair and glasses, siblings (only a younger sister), birth month (our birthdays are separated by less than two weeks), and my mother is even originally from a town only a stone's throw away from the Paolinis' Montana home.

Creepy, right? Now you get what I mean by being haunted by this guy. I'd like to think that he's the evil one, but there are times that I fear our uncanny commonalities extend to the quality of our writing.

-shudder-

With all that being said, I am going to do my best to give this book a chance. Despite my long history of hate for these books, I can freely admit that ''Eragon'' was actually kind of fun. If Paolini had improved from there, Inheritance could be a good series. However, the series instead went downhill. Has Inheritance continued this decline, or is the final novel of the series truly its crowning jewel? Well, that's what we're here to find out. So grab a snack, queue up some tunes, and cover your desk in fluffy pillows, because we're going to be sporking Inheritance. You have been warned.

Comments

MadassAlex Since: Dec, 1969

Nov 13th 2011 at 10:59:01 AM

Egads, you poor, brave warrior.

Accela Since: Dec, 1969

Nov 13th 2011 at 11:31:54 AM

Good luck. You're going to need it.

TheEmeraldDragon Since: Dec, 1969

Nov 13th 2011 at 7:32:45 PM

Luck, nothing. You need whiskey. *passes the bottle around*

melloncollie Since: Dec, 1969

Nov 27th 2011 at 2:42:56 AM

"and all who gazed upon them despaired, for their beauty was great and terrible."

I thought that was a reference to Ozymandias. Would've actually been sort of fitting too, although real tacky. Or would that be giving Paolini too much credit?

Wryte Since: Dec, 1969

Nov 27th 2011 at 2:18:00 PM

I can kind of see that now that you bring it up, but the extremely similar wording still cements it as ripping off Galadriel in my mind. Honestly, the very instant I read that sentence in the book, my brain went straight to Galadriel's mirror scene in the film. The wording is just too damningly similar.

I might be willing to go out on a limb and say he could have been going for an Ozymandias reference and it was coincidental that it came out this way, but that doesn't excuse the similarity, especially since he has an editor (and I'd still call it a stretch in the first place).

Fauxlosophe Since: Dec, 1969

Apr 18th 2013 at 5:59:23 PM

Hey; most of the links here are 404s.