Inheritance Cycle Review

by Christopher Paolini 

The Inheritance cycle is the unforgettable, worldwide bestselling saga of one boy, one dragon, and a world of adventure. When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he and his dragon, Saphira, are thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands. . . .

Brisingr

I've been waiting for Inheritance to come out for a long time and only recently was able to get my hands on the book. In the mean time I was reading the first three books in the series to remind me exactly what has been happening. (There are so many people, places and events to keep track of!)  When I read Brisingr I was about half way through it before I remembered why the book is so difficult to finish. Originally there were supposed to be three books in this series, but half way through writing this book Paolini decided this book had to be its own story.
I don't agree with this decision AT ALL. In a lot of ways I loved how Eragon and Saphira developed more of their own indepdent voices in this book, but there wasn't enough plot development to keep me interested during the 700 page book. (and then read another 700 page book to finish the story) The author focused on Saphira, Eragon and Roran in this book, but I thought there were other characters that could have a voice as well. I would have loved to have seen Arya have a voice. She is such a complex character and hearing her version of events would have been so interesting! Plus she is a much more mature character than Eragon! I found it frustrating that Paolini only switched perspectives between these few characters. Roran's perspective was all moaning about Katrina and killing people instead of advancing the plot. I was frustrated with this book until I finished it, but I still had hope that this story would end on a good note.
Rating 3/5 

Inheritance

The final book in this series, Inheritance, is just as thick as Brisingr. I have a lot of the same issues with this book as I did with the third one. Even so, I liked this book better. There are so many things I really liked about this book. I had a good many predictions about this book before I began and some of them came true while others didn't which was great! There were good plot points! There were things that threw me for a loop! I was excited. I should also mention that I finished this book in three days, neglected my school work to read it and stayed up until 1am to finish this book. I was so excited to read this and find out what happened between the King and Eragon! Then I did.....
The end of this story was one of the biggest disappointments I've had in a while. I just was expecting so much and for the story to redeem itself and to make up for all this time I've spend reading all the description and it just didn't. It fell completely flat for me.
There are three reasons why I think this ending did not work for me
1 ) It seemed like Paolini was trying to set up for a sequel series? I'm not sure, but there was a lot of talk about the future and what was going to happen that maybe he was setting up to have a series set up in the future once the world had changed? That's the feel I got from it at least. (Even though there hasn't been any talk about this and I didn't really want one) There wasn't enough of a solid end point for me. There seemed like there was too much left open.
2) I had too many unanswered questions. I won't pose them here because of spoilers, but there were a lot of things that I still had questions about.
3) It seemed like no one was happy at the end of this series! When you learn about characters and care about them you want them to be happy, and there seemed to be no happiness in sight at the end of this book. I thought there wasn't enough rewards for the protagonists for what they suffered through.
Rating 3/5

This Series as a Whole

There is A LOT of description in these books. It is overwhelming and frankly annoying. Towards the end I stared skipping paragraphs of battles, scenery and people just because there is so much unnecessary detail. As a reader I was exhausted from hearing about every step of every process that Eragon took and all the details about the places he went. I was tired of this book before I got to the end, but I was still eager to find out what happened next....
The first two books were defiantly stronger to me. They had plots that moved a long faster. I liked the character development throughout the series. I thought Eragon defiantly changed from farm boy to Dragon Rider till the end which was good. He advanced as a character and grew up. He could have done more growing in my opinion but young characters are often like that.
Still I'm not discouraging anyone from readings these books. I think they can still worth reading if you are wiling to stick with them even though I have issues with them.
Rating of Series: 3/5