yoo...here to write my review on 'Eldest' by Christopher Paolini

bet some of you guys hav already caught the show 'Eragon' and this book is the sequel to that show...and i had a hard time gettin the book as it was kinda new...published on 2005...credits to sherwyn for lendin it to mi...!

well...a brief history on the trilogy...

the first book 'Eragon' was written by the author when he was 15...and it was first published when he was in college...it took a long time for him to refine his plot and manuscript...and by sheer luck, he was able to publish his book...'eldest' was completed jus recently...2years ago...and the last of the trilogy is on its way to the shelves...its a much anticipated book for all the fantasy fans out dere...

honestly speakin...fantasy genre aint reali my type...except for major works such as LOTR...but this trilogy on the mythical dragon riders caught my attention when i saw the cover of the first book...a blue dragon named saphira...and the second book, a red dragon called thorn...

i stayed up late last nite to complete the book and it wasnt that hard as the endin of the book was grippin my nerves...din reali feel any fatigue despite readin into the wee hours...the endin was comparable to LOTR where a great battle between the different races commenced...(LOTR still remains as my fav though...)

the book started off by depicting eragon embarkin on a journey to the elves homeland to learn his trade as a rider...as elves' knowledge on magic is the greatest among the other races and they were the pioneers that intiated the bonds between dragons and riders...

the whole book is so interestin due to the many dilemma encountered by the different races and individuals that it makes you wana continue readin...insights to all this i suggest you guys to read the book...

for those hu is interested in readin the book, do not continue on readin this post...cos i will be revealin some of the twists in the story from here onwards...

one of the twists in the story which i personally love was that throughout the whole series, it was made clear that no riders survived after the invasion by galbotorix except for galbotorix himself wif shruikan his black dragon...eragon a newfound rider with saphira a blue female dragon...and brom whose dragon was murdered durin the years of the invasion...and he eventually died in the first book...thus there were no other riders other then this 2...but...dere was one elf rider who appeared in the 2nd book...and he, oromis, had a magnificient male golden dragon named Glaedr...and oromis was the one whom will tutor and guide eragon as a new rider passin down all the knowledge and skill needed to be a great rider...an interestin fact bout oromis was his nickname...'the crippled who is whole'...go figure this one yourself...

another twist was that the 2 eggs that galbotorix had, one hatched into saphira upon eragon's touch...another remained unhatched...and i personally thought tt it wuld only hatch in the third book...but to my surprise, it hatched into Thorn the red male dragon on the cover...i wuld not divulge who thorn's rider is and that is the twist of all twists in this book...thus, i shadnt reveal more...

and of course like any other fantasy authors, paolini also instilled certain situations in the book to depict stuff that are certainly happenin to us in the reality...such as a conversation between eragon and oromis after eragon's daily lesson...the whole argument was bout 3-4 pages long...so i will shorten to the best i can...

eragon presented himself to oromis, "master, it struck me last night that neither you nor the hundreds of elven scrolls i've read mentioned your religion. what do you elves believe in? "

"we believe that the world behaves according to certain inviolable rules and that, by persistent effort, we can discover those rules and use them to predict events when circumstances repeat."

eragon blinked and asked, "but what or who do you worship?

"nothin"

"you worship the concept of nothing?"

"no eragon. we do not worship at all..."

(after a whole page of describing how confused and bewildered eragon felt) he ask,

"where do you think the world came from then, if it wasnt created by the gods?"

oromis replied, "i would not necessary agree with you. but as that may, i canot prove that gods do not exist. nor can i prove that the world and everytin in it was not created by an entity or entities in the distant past. but i can tell you that in the millennia we elves hav studied nature, we hav never witnessed an instance where the rules that govern the world have been broken. that is, we have never seen a miracle. many events have defied our ability to explain, but we are convinced that we failed because we are still woefully ignorant bout the universe and not because a deity altered the workings of nature."

"a god wouldnt have to alter nature to accomplish his will" asserted eragon, "he could do it within the system that already exists....he could use magic to affect events..."

oromis smiled, "very true. but ask yourself this, eragon. if god ever exist, hav they been good custodians of Alagaesia? death, sickness,poverty,tyranny and countless other miseries stalk the land. if this is the handiwork of divine beings, then they are to be rebelled against and overthrown, not given obeisance, obedience and reverance."

"but the dwarves believes---"

"exactly! the dwarves believes. when it comes to certain matters, they rely upon faith rather than reason. they have even been known to ignore proven facts that contradict their dogma..."

and the whole conversation goes on makin such an impact on eragon that he went several days tinkin that his master had upturned whatever he had believed in since he was young.

though his master's advise to him was..."depend on yourself watever comes...that makes us more responsible to our actions and not blame it on some gods that we believed in..."

very interestin perspective of paolini to convey this message in his book...of cos i do not hundred percent agree...but still...worth bringin it up... =)

had a great time readin this book and i cant wait for the last volume of this inheritance trilogy...

signin off...~