I had put off reading “Eragon” until recently, but finally morbid curiosity got the best of me. I could begin by analyzing its phenomenally slow plot, its unnecessarily long exposition, its woefully underdeveloped characters, but instead I think I’ll just start with instructions, just in case you’d like to produce a similar work yourself:

How to write “Eragon” in five simple steps:

1. Finely chop the plot of “Star Wars: A New Hope.” Do not mince: be sure to preserve the overly obvious connections, such as running home to find your uncle dead and home destroyed just before being whisked off for magical warrior training by the local hermit, who turns out to be the last remnant of a once mighty elite fighting force.
2. Take four parts of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing style. Strain several times through a cheesecloth to remove elegance, structure, good syntax, consistent vocabulary, and word effeciency. The watery broth left over should smell of sophomoric attempts to sound lofty, with a smattering of California slang adding a hint of pungency.
3. Plagiarize ethnicities, place-names, and names for main characters from “The Lord of the Rings.”
4. Stir carefully in a sauce pan over no heat. After all, you’re only 16 and aren’t allowed to use the stove.
5. Place in a jar and shake well. Hope that the publishing deal comes through before the contents settle and nobody is fooled anymore. If you’re really lucky, you can land a movie deal and you won’t even care that the script is even worse than your book.

Essentially, the only reason this book got published is because the author was so young when he wrote it. It’s awful, and in a few years will be left behind in the great pantheon of mediocre fantasy literature. This isn’t to say that Paolini doesn’t show promise; there are a few moments when Eragon reflects on the nature of mortality that are quite deep and touching. But this work is a hollow mimicry of the authors he clearly admires. Like a child playing dress up in his father’s trousers, he is amusing, but can’t actually fill the shoes that he’s attempting to wear.

The plot consists of Eragon, his curmudgeonly mentor Brom, and Saphira the dragon wandering around aimlessly, trying to avoid the armies of the evil Emperor Galbatorix and trying to figure out a way to get revenge for the murder of Eragon’s uncle. There are hardly any good battles, and most of the plot consists of telepathic conversations between boy and dragon about how young Eragon is and how much he needs to learn. We get it. Shut up and fight somebody already. The one battle at the end is poorly described, and although it’s clearly attempting to evoke memories of Helm’s Deep, Paolini fails spectacularly. Arya, the elf-princess, is amazing in that although she has ten times the lines and story time than Arwen, her character is just as vacuous and uninteresting. Apparently she has a nice body, though, which is the most descriptive Paolini ever gets with regard to her character.

The dragon doesn’t breathe fire. There’s only one battle of note. The dialogue consists of a bizarre blend of modern Standard American English and words from Ye Olde Dayes of Yore forcibly crammed in in an attempt to sound epic.

If Paolini had waited ten more years before publishing, this work could have been something really spectacular. He does deserve credit for mangaing to sew together a coherent narrative at his age, and his one unique trait is the intense bond between Dragon and Rider that is interesting both from a literary and psychological standpoint. However, this book does not merit much attention, and Paolini would do better to refrain from committing further literary crimes in the immediate future. Maybe he ought to finish up home school, go to college, have a real job for a few years, and then return to the pen. He might be able to produce something worth reading then.