Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini

[Andy]

If you know me, then you probably know that I was not a fan of the first two books in Christoper Paolini's Interitance Trilogy. Although with the release of this third book, he has changed it to The Interitance Cycle (with four books), so there's still one book left to go.

What's Brisingr about? A young man named Eragon, the last of the legendary Dragon Riders, must continue his quest to help the elves, dwarves, and rebels overthrow a tyrannical emperor named Galbatorix. That's it in a nutshell.

I'm glad to see Paolini's writing has improved since he wrote the first two books. The dialogue sounds more natural now, and his writing has become less derivative of other works. He has really allowed the more creative aspects of his first two books to branch out, and Brisingr feels much less like a mish-mash of other authors' works than the first two books. Even so, the writing is far from perfect, and this book is dying to be examined by a good editor.

For whatever reason, the author seems to have become a big fan of blood and gore in this book. And I mean a BIG fan. In the first six pages, our protagonists are executing a rescue mission. But before they can safely proceed, they have to watch a blood-rite initiation ceremony performed by their foes. Their leader spills his blood in "streams," blood is spilled on an altar, the initiates drink the blood, and one of them later cuts off their limb to prove their worthiness.

Less than 70 pages later, the leader of the good rebels has to fight a potential ally for leadership. How does this fight work? They alternate making long cuts on their bodies with a blade to see who can last the longest before fainting or the pain becomes too great. The remainder of the book is speckled with people getting "gored" and cut so their blood comes out in streams. I normally don't have a problem with this, but when you have two ceremonies focused on blood, performed by completely different cultures within the first 100 pages, it really makes me wonder why Paolini seems to obsessed by it. Only after that did I really notice it throughout the rest of the book.

But this book's biggest problem - a problem found in the first two books but which REALLY took over this book, was the slow pacing and the author's complete inability to summarize or condense anything.

In a typical book, if a character makes a routine trip to the grocery store, you're not going to be reading about it for twenty pages, unless something really important happens.

But in Brisingr, that's not the case. If something happens, then you're going to be treated to every insignificant detail about it. The protagonists waiting for an unimportant blood ceremony to finish? Seven pages. Eragon visits a blacksmith needing a sword and leaves deciding he must find a better blacksmith? Twelve pages. Eragon waits during a tedious political discussion? Twenty pages. It never stops. We never hear from the fell priests again, nor the blacksmith, nor the details of the politics. The author could have easily summed each of these things up in a page - maybe by having Eragon briefly relate his experiences to another character, but it never happens. Even Eragon seems to be bored by these events. He criticizes his dragon for not coming earlier to "rescue" him from the chatterbox blacksmith. He yawns during the dwarves' discussions. This book is 748 pages long, but I've read books half this size where far more things happened - more interesting things, too. If you read this book, try to find events that the author summarizes. There just aren't any. You experience everything in its entirety.

Part of the problem is that Eragon keeps making so many oaths to so many different people. In fact, the alternate title of this book is The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular. Is that doesn't scream, "This book is bloated!" I don't know what will. The protagonist forces himself to fulfill his many oaths by catering to all the political and personal demands of other characters. In fact, most of this book involves Eragon traveling around the world completing errands for different people. That shouldn't be a problem in itself, but fulfilling all his oaths is as tedious for readers as it is for Eragon. It's not enough to know he's tired. We have to feel tired as well.

Paolini got a lot of criticism when this book came out, by people saying that adding a fourth book was unnecessary. And after finally reading it, I agree. Yes, several important things happen that will affect the final book. But I don't feel there were enough of them. Even the final battle felt unnecessary. It pits the rebels against a small city in a corner of the world map in which no major villains reside, whose significance I have yet to figure out.

With a good editor, this book could have been cut down to at least half its size. All the important events could have easily been put at the beginning of a final book in a trilogy. I just do not feel a fourth book was justified.

To conclude, the author's dialogue and creativity have improved with this third book. Despite that, Brisingr is very badly bloated and does not further the story very much. The characterization hasn't progressed at all from the previous book. Everyone acts and feels the same, without any measurable growth or changes, despite several revelations. Even the romantic bits were pushed aside.

At the end of the story, a semi-major character dies, Eragon has a new sword, someone gets promoted, and all the major characters end up in the same places they started. Knowing that, you can probably pick up the fourth book when it comes out and feel like you haven't missed a thing.

[Shaun]

Just a note: the whole "cutting to win dominance" thing is practiced by several cultures on Earth. It's not that far out there that different peoples would come up with practices like that, provided that's an incentive (i.e. if you live where population size is hard to keep up, then it makes sense not to fight to the death, since the loss of an individual can really mess things up).

Anywho.

[Andy]

Just a note: the whole "cutting to win dominance" thing is practiced by several cultures on Earth. It's not that far out there that different peoples would come up with practices like that, provided that's an incentive (i.e. if you live where population size is hard to keep up, then it makes sense not to fight to the death, since the loss of an individual can really mess things up).

Anywho.
I don't doubt it, but seeing two ceremonies that revolve around spilling blood described in great detail within the first 100 pages is a bit much, I think. He could have at least put one of them later in the story.

It's not them, but their close proximity which had me raising eyebrows.

[Shaun]

I haven't read it. Probably never will, to be honest. But not for the reasons you would think. There's no reason for this not to be a trilogy, and I am completely disinterested in indulging him by buying two more books and waiting 12 years for them both (well, 6 now for the next one).

[Rouge]

This book sounds like a lolfest.

I'm so not in.

[Writing_for_a_life]

I was really disappointed on the author when I read it.My opinion is that for his own profits(making more money) ,he write a book that contains the half of the information(for the characters) and the plot ,that he could have include.

[Andy]

I was really disappointed on the author when I read it.My opinion is that for his own profits(making more money) ,he write a book that contains the half of the information(for the characters) and the plot ,that he could have include.
According to this interview (http://www.shurtugal.com/?id=media/interviews/brisingr1) (which was linked from Wikipedia), he says he had to come up with "an ending for the book that I hadn’t actually planned on", "to hold reader interest through the ending of the book."

So at the very least, he confirms the battle wasn't originally planned. It was tacked on for the sole purpose of keeping the reader's interest. And that's exactly the impression I got. I didn't see the military or practical significance of the battle at all, especially since he basically introduces and then kills off four minor villains during the battle.

[Majyk]

I started to read this book, but I don't think I read more than three pages before I decided that I would never make it through over 700 pages more. Now I can see that I made the right choice.

[Lykaios]

http://www.seattlepi.com/books/382170_paolini08.html
Although his writing has grown more polished, the spotlight has made him self-conscious, robbing him of his early confidence. With "Brisingr" he admits he hit a wall.

"I was obsessing over every single word," he said. "It got to the point where I was having trouble finishing a single page in a day."

In desperation, he wrote the final third of the book in ink-dipped pen on parchment, the sentences flowing as his iridium-nibbed pen skated across the page. With his "very, very small" handwriting, he crammed 2,000 words onto a single page.

"My poor mom," he said, "is the one who had to type this stuff in, bless her soul."

Lolz. What writer gets their mother to type up their writing . . . ?

[Andy]

Lolz. What writer gets their mother to type up their writing . . . ?
:whistle:

[Iridescence]

http://www.seattlepi.com/books/382170_paolini08.html


"I have to read you my favorite line of the book," he told the sold-out house, cradling his 784-page best-seller, "Brisingr," in one hand. He made a sweeping flourish and intoned melodramatically: "Die, puny human!"

"What's the point of writing fantasy," Paolini crowed to the cheers of the crowd, "if you can't write lines like, 'Die, puny human'?"



*facepalm*

[Shaun]

It's intentionally a joke line...you can do that in fantasy. Not everything has to be Tolkien high-elite snobbery...

I mean, goodness, just read a few pages from Douglas Adams. Or some of the lines written for the LOTR movies...

[lalodragon]

I was about to read Eldest, but if the rest of the series is so bad I might not. I can handle a few cliches; this is overboard. and pointless from the sound of it.... (I only get these things out of libraries, though; I don't buy books I haven't read.) ;)

[Kitty]

I read the entire thing and the thing (besides what has previously been pointed out because I feel no need to re-state it) It seemed extremely extremely filler. It was just setting the stage for everything to happen, and really, what's the point? I get you have to set the stage, but it was just filler. The kind of thing when re-reading a book you can skip because nothing mega huge extremely important happens except in a few itty bitty parts, if you look closely enough at the way it is being set up, you can tell

Orik was going to become king,
He and Arya are kind of going to get closer
They move closer to the city


The only really important stuff could be more outlined and detailed. This book could have been much better than it could have.

It just wasn't very good. The only thing I can say for it is, it becomes more of his story, instead of all kinds of ideas pulled together from other places.