Review: ‘Brisingr’ entertaining but light on plot

The latest addition to Christopher Paolini's "Inheritance Cycle" breaks the mold the first two books seemed to follow.

The novel, titled "Brisingr," or "The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular," is the first in the series whose plot was not copy-pasted from the "Star Wars Trilogy."

The other books, "Eragon" and "Eldest," tell the story of Eragon, a naive farmboy living with his uncle and cousin, who discovers a dragon egg and, soon after it hatches, finds his home destroyed by the Ra'zac, servants of Galbatorix (a Dragon Rider gone bad) who also have killed his uncle. Eragon flees his hometown of Carvahall with his dragon, Saphira, and learns magic under the tutelage of Brom, a mysterious former Dragon Rider.

If that doesn't sound like the first 30 minutes of "A New Hope," nothing does.

Unsurprisingly, as the series continues, Brom is murdered protecting Eragon, and Eragon and Saphira end up pledging their loyalty to serve the Varden (think of the Resistance in "Star Wars").

Eragon and Saphira spend most of the second novel, "Eldest," learning magic from Oromis and Glaedr, the only other dragon and Dragon Rider not under Galbatorix's control. And, just like with Luke's lessons from Yoda, when Eragon and Saphira try to leave too soon, they are warned that they may never complete their education.

All this, coupled with the announcement toward the end of "Eldest" that Eragon's father was Morzan, Galbatorix's right-hand man, prepared readers for more ideas stolen from George Lucas in the third book.

In that manner, they were pleasantly surprised.

Nothing in the third book bears a strong resemblance to anything in the "Star Wars" saga.

Instead, "Brisingr," is about 60 percent fluff, 20 percent politics, 19 percent sword-banging and 1 percent romance. And of the parts of the novel that weren't fluff, there were only about 100 pages of the 763-page book that couldn't have been skipped altogether.

The book's plot itself is nearly impossible to summarize since there really isn't one. "Brisingr," while a mostly entertaining read, isn't much more than a string of unconnected events happening to a basic set of characters concluded by a 50-page battle scene no more exciting or important than all the other battles the book described.

Like the previous books, "Brisingr" is clearly the product of a young man's imagination.

Paolini went a little crazy with the battle scenes. Every other time Roran, Eragon's cousin, is mentioned, he's performing some testosterone-charged feat of stupidity (such as killing 193 enemy soldiers and watching their bodies pile up around him). And even when Roran isn't in the fight, the descriptions tend to be just a bit too detailed and proudly gruesome.

And the dialogue is often more than a little bit ridiculous. In one scene early in the book, Eragon and Roran have a heart-to-heart about the women in their lives. "You dote upon her words as if each one were a diamond, and your gaze lingers upon her as if you were starving and she a grand feast arrayed an inch beyond your reach," Roran tells Eragon about his crush, Arya.

Speaking as a high schooler, no teenage guy I've ever met would be able to seriously say that to any other teenage guy, even if they were cousins.

This sort of mistake is a bit understandable, however. According to his biography, Paolini graduated high school when he was 15 after being home-schooled his entire life. After graduating, he immediately started writing the "Inheritance Cycle."

Paolini is a great story maker. His books are filled with intricate and imaginative tales in unusual settings. All he needs to be a great storyteller is to take a break from writing and get a handle on how real life and real people really work.