Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

File:Eldest book cover.png
Eldest is the second book in the Inheritance Cycle,  the sequel to Eragon. It mainly focuses on Eragon's training with the elves, but there are also many chapters about Roran (Eragon's Cousin)'s struggles with the Empire.

I found the book to be a bit too long—it had 1000 pages! It was perhaps filled with too many (unimportant) events and too many details of the events, and I have to admit that it could get a bit tiring after about six to seven hundred pages. This was especially true because by the end the chapters involving Roran became incredibly repetitive and boring, to the point where I almost wanted to just skip them.

Nevertheless, it was a great read. I actually enjoyed most parts of the book because the majority of it was about Eragon's magic training, which I found very interesting. Also, I really liked the part where Eragon found out how he actually cursed the girl whom he thought he had blessed. That was very... exhilarating. Furthermore, the revelations at the end were simply astounding (but I wound't want to spoil that for you, would I?).

Overall, I would recommend anyone who hasn't read this book to read it, given that they have read Eragon already. And if one finds this book too long, I would suggest skipping over some pages (or even chapters), as it doesn't really matter if one doesn't read about all the details.