After a few recommendations I finally started and finished Eragon by Paolini. The book was supposedly so great that they even made a movie (I haven't seen it yet). I started the book with high hopes and found I was a little frustrated by the book at first. I felt like I had jumped right in the middle of a D&D adventure. I actually put the book away unable to get much further, but then I was home with the sick daughter yesterday and read the book as she slept or lounged on me. Then, I could not get over how much of the story was ripped from Star Wars, and then later from Lord of the Rings. For some reason though, I kept reading on.
It got me to thinking, are those story lines so universal that they show up everywhere? Are they so great that everyone wants to plagiarize them?
You think I am exaggerating about the copying from Star Wars? In Eragon, an orphaned boy is being raised by his uncle on a farm outside a small city in the middle of nowhere. The orphaned boy was delivered by his mother to the uncle and she mysteriously disappeared. The father is unknown and remains unknown throughout the first book, but believe me I am pretty sure it is one of the evil villains that will turn out to be his dad. Then, the boy finds something that the evil Empire (King of the Empire) wants and the evil empire does.... guess what? Yep, the bad guys torch his uncle's place while the boy is away and managed to kill the uncle. So, who helps the boy on his quest for revenge? An old mysterious man who is wise on many subjects, including the use of magic and starts training the boy on how to levitate rocks and sword play. Sound familiar yet???!!! The book goes on with additional similarities with the rebel force hidden away in a mountain, the evil king corrupted by dark magic, etc....
Then towards the end of the book is a long chase scene that reminds me of Lord of the Rings. In LOTR the group is trying to get to the land of elves for safety and they have to cross that magical river where the water rises up like a wall of white running horses. Yep, I am reading this book and that is what I can't stop thinking of the whole time.
Yet, somehow I was engrossed in this book. With all the cliches (there are more!), I was still on a mission to finish it last night and I think the reason why is that I am sucker for dragons and the author brought them to life for me and gave them a personality, mystery and beauty. It kind of reminded me of how I discovered the Anne McCaffrey books as a youngster at the library all those many years ago. Her books are the main reason I have the dragon tattoo on my back. It started an early fascination with dragons. Now that I think about, he copied stuff from those books as well!
My last thought on the Eragon book is that it was probably published because it is an amazing piece considering the the boy who wrote was about the same age as the character in his book, 15. That may be the main fascination for most people.
And I can't believe this, but one of my goals at the library today is to find his other book so I can read what happens next. Such a sucker!
1 comment:
Book 2 is just as good. I enjoyed the books and the whole time I read the first one I just kept thinking "Damn, he was so young when he wrote this........" He was also home schooled.
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