Inheritance

Well, here we are: Inheritance, the final book in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle.  After Brisingr, I was seriously considering not continuing with the series.  But a friend of mine who has read the series told me I had to finish it now that I made it this far.  So I did (despite the book being about 850 pages).

This is going to be very spoilery, so if you intend to read the series, be warned.

Inheritance continues the Varden's inexorable march towards Galbatorix in Uru'Baen, conquering cities as they go.  After conquering Belatona (where Roran almost dies), they are halted at Dras-Leona by the appearance of Murtagh and Thorn.  Eragon, Arya, Angela and one of the elves sneak into the tunnels beneath the city to try to get the Varden through the gates; Arya and Eragon are very nearly killed by the cult of Hellgrind who worships the Rez'ac and Lethrblaka (and happens to have some eggs that are ready to hatch).  Angela rescues them and they succeed in opening the gates, but Eragon loses the belt of Beloth the Wise (a gift from Oromis). The Varden are able to drive off Thorn and Murtagh, but the duo return and kidnap Nasuada, leaving Eragon to lead the Varden without her.

In desperation, Eragon and Saphira end up taking Glaedr and journeying to Vroengard in an attempt to solve the remainder of Solembum's riddle.  There they find more than they could have ever hoped for: Eldunari that were hidden from Galbatorix, as well as dragon eggs!  Leaving a few Eldunari behind with the eggs (and agreeing to having the knowledge of the eggs removed from their memories until such time as Galbatorix is defeated), the trio return to the Varden to begin the assault on Uru'Baen.  Eragon comes up with a daring plan: he will take Saphira, Elva, Arya, the Eldunari, and the elf spellcasters, sneak in, and assault Galbatorix while the remainder of the Varden, along with their allies, provide a distraction by attacking the city proper. 

Making it through all the traps (and losing the elf spellcasters in the process - they weren't killed but removed from play by one of Galbatorix's traps), Eragon, Saphira, Elva, Arya, and the Eldunari confront Galbatorix, who knows all about them (and even prevents Elva from speaking so he will not have to worry about the witch-child's powers).  Galbatorix has found the Name of the Ancient Language, and so can rewrite the laws of magic as he chooses (effectively crippling Eragon and company).  He also has two children present who he threatens to kill if the allies do not immediately stop and cease any attempt to kill him (while many of the older Eldunari do not care, the others want to try to save the children if they can, and so convince everyone to cease).  Eragon challenges Galbatorix to direct combat; Galbatorix declines but insists that Eragon fight Murtagh.  As the fight ends in his defeat, Murtagh realizes that his true name has changed (because he now cares about others, not just his own survival) and he's able to blindside Galbatorix by also using that Name.  In the ensuing struggle, Galbatorix corners Eragon within his mind and attempts to crush him into submission; in a desperate move, Eragon just wants Galbatorix to feel all the pain and suffering he has inflicted on everyone over the last century.  Aided by the Eldunari (many of whom lost their riders and friends in the battle against Galbatorix and the Forsworn a century ago), they succeed in vanquishing the mad-king.

In the aftermath, Nasuada is crowned queen and seeks to unite the humans within Algaesia.  She intends to police the magicians and wants Eragon to lead in that effort.  But Eragon knows his first commitment is to the dragons and the new riders who will now emerge.  He and Saphira realize that Algaesia is not the place for the dragons to live though, and so, fulfilling Angela's prophecy from when she told his fortune, the pair agrees to leave the continent (possibly forever) in order to keep everyone safe.  But before they go, they change the magic of the dragons so that Urgals and Dwarves can also become Dragon Riders, thereby making the new future Riders truly of all the races of Algaesia.

I glossed over a bunch of things that happened, like the third egg Galbatorix had hatching for Arya (this was in the aftermath - her mother died in the last battle, so Arya ends up both Queen of the Elves and a Dragon Rider) and Nasuada's torture by Galbatorix as he tried to get her oath of fealty (as well as growing friendship with Murtagh).

I'm not going to lie: I really liked Inheritance.  It was by far the best book in the whole series, and honestly was a fitting end (although I do find myself curious about what happened to everyone afterwards).  While, as I already mentioned, the book is huge, the first 700-750 pages just flew by (the last bit didn't though because that was all the aftermath after Galbatorix was defeated; the book built very nicely to that, but kind of lagged afterwards, much in the way the story of the first Bioshock game does).  This was in stark contrast to Brisingr (and even like all the Eragon parts within Eldest), which lagged and honestly felt like huge chunks should never have made it into the final book.

This is the first book that we actually get to see Galbatorix (he took over Murtagh and Thorn briefly in Brisingr to talk to Oromis, but that wasn't the same).  He reminded me a lot of Thanos from the Marvel movies, wanting to make a better world but not really thinking about the consequences and hurt of doing so.  In a lot of ways that kind of made him scary because you could see the appeal of what he was proposing (I was actually amazed that none of the characters willingly chose to join him, especially since he was so charismatic when he chose to be).

Roran takes a back seat in this book, which is a shame but understandable (a lot of the action took place around Eragon and the dragons/Eldunari).  Surprisingly, we actually got to see more of Galbatorix thanks to Nasuada (as well as more Murtagh, which was nice as he wasn't in battle).  I still think Murtagh is a super interesting character, and honestly would have loved to see much more of him struggling against and learning from Galbatorix.

Eragon also feels like he has grown up a bit.  I didn't feel like he was looking down on people as much as in the other books (or whining that he's not as powerful as he should be, even though like everything was coming to him easily).  So that definitely made the book more pleasant to read.

I also really liked that Arya and Eragon don't end up together (although at the end it feels like a near miss).  With all the times she told Eragon no, she wasn't interested, and how he kept apologizing, saying it wouldn't happen again, then making his feelings plain to her again anyway, I was getting super fed up with the whole thing.  Like come on, Eragon, no means no.  I was also laughing because by the end of the first book, I had a feeling that those three eggs would end up with Eragon, Murtagh, and Arya, and I ended up right.

Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised that Brom didn't come back from the dead somehow.  I don't know why (probably the similarities to Lord of the Rings), but I kept expecting Brom to show up again.  So very glad that didn't happen.

One thing that annoyed me to no end in this and the other books was how characters wouldn't explain plans to the reader while they were explaining something to someone else.  Like in the aftermath of Inheritance, when Eragon's asking the Urgals and Dwarves if they want to be Riders, the book says  things like "The Herndall listened in silence as he explained, though Garzvog stirred, as if uneasy, and uttered a low grunt.  When Eragon finished, the Herndall did not speak or move for several minutes..."  Then the book reveals the plan later when he's actually changing the spell to make people of those races Riders.  It's a lazy way to build suspense, and the books were rife with this.

So that's it, the Inheritance Cycle is read!  It feels good to cross off these three huge books from the List. :)

Brisingr

Ooof.  Brisingr.

The story picks up not long after Eldest.  Roran, Eragon, and Saphira assault Helgrind to rescue Katrina and get their revenge against the Ra'zac.  The plan succeeds, but Eragon discovers a slight hitch: Sloan. Katrina's father who was responsible for letting the Ra'zac invade Carvarhall and kidnap Katrina, is still alive there, too.  Eragon makes a hasty decision to send Katrina and Roran back to the Varden with Saphira (without telling them that Sloan is still alive), then to get the butcher out of Helgrind and punish him in some way.  He accidentally discovers Sloan's true name, and ends up sending him to the elves, cursing him to never again lay eyes on his daughter.

With that accomplished, Eragon then needs to run through the Empire back to the Varden.  On hearing that he stayed behind, Nasuada sends Arya to go help him.  And so after finding one another, they spend a whole bunch of time running through the Empire together and otherwise dodging imperial soldiers. 

Upon making it back, and swearing he will not leave Saphira again, Nasuada orders Eragon to go the the dwarves alone.  The dwarves are choosing their new king, and as an adopted member of one of the dwarf tribes, Eragon has the right to be there.  Nasuada wants Eragon to try to get Orik on the throne or, failing that, someone else who will remain sympathetic to the Varden.  While she cannot order Saphira to do anything, she requests that the dragon remain to keep up the ruse that Eragon is still with the Varden.  The two reluctantly agree to the separation.

Meanwhile, Eragon's cousin, Roran, marries Katrina (it's a hasty thing so they can keep Katrina's honour intact as she very quickly becomes pregnant upon her rescue - this happens just before Eragon leaves, so he gets to be present, too).  Afterwards Nasuada sends Roran on missions under the Varden's command to assess his skills (and whether or not she can entrust her people under him).  Roran excels under his first commander, but runs into trouble with his second one: the man is ridiculously rigid, and Roran ends up defying direct orders from the captain in order to keep his men alive).  As a result, Nasuada is forced to punish him (even though he kept her people alive and single-handedly slew almost 200 soldiers); he receives 50 lashes, but almost immediately is then given command of his own company of men, reporting directly to Nasuada (in her words, she cannot risk him defying orders again, but she knows he can inspire people and will be valuable to the Varden).  He's also given command of Urgals; someone within the Varden had taken it upon himself to kill three of the Urgals, so Nasuada needed the two races to work together (and thought Roran would have the best chance of keeping the peace as leader).  One of the Urgals challenges Roran for leadership and, despite the Urgal having more natural weapons (horns and claw-like fingernails) and Roran still recovering from the lashes, Roran manages to best the Urgal.

Meanwhile, after Orik wins the vote and is crowned king of the dwarves, Eragon and Saphira (who joined Eragon for the coronation and to mend the star sapphire she and Arya broke during Eragon's fight with the shade, Durza), fly to Ellesmera to talk with their teachers, Glaedr and Oromis.  They learn the truths of Galbatorix and Murtagh's power (they have many dragons' heart of hearts (Eldunari), an organ that a dragon can hide its consciousness in and so live if its body is destroyed), as well as Eragon's own parentage (he is the son of Brom, not Morzan).  Eragon is in need of a weapon, and so, remembering the werecat Solembum's advice, they go looking for a weapon under the roots of the Menoa tree (a tree that an elf joined her consciousness to many years ago).  They discover that at the tree's roots isn't a weapon per se, but the metal used to craft the Dragon Riders' swords.  They convince the tree to give it to them (although they make an unknown promise to give the tree something in return), then bring the metal to the smith, Rhunon.  While she has sworn an oath not to make another sword, she instead uses Eragon and makes the sword through him.  Although they are super pressed for time, the two of them craft her masterpiece: a beautiful blue sword that matches Saphira; Eragon christens the sword Brisingr (and every time he says the word, the sword's blade bursts into flame). 

As they are about to part from Ellesmera, Oromis and Glaedr gift Saphira and Eragon with Glaedr's Eldunari.  To Eragon and Saphira's surprise, Glaedr and Oromis also ride to battle, but rather than joining the Varden, they fly to support the elves.  Eragon and Saphira fly south and find the Varden already sieging the city of Feinster.  They join the fray and make their way to the city's keep with Arya to confront the Lady Lorana.  To their surprise, the woman is willing to help them as much as she can (she was forced to swear oaths to Galbatorix, and so cannot do much herself).  She urges them to stop a trio of spellcasters who are frantically trying to make another shade.  They slay two of them, but the third spellcaster is successful.  But with Eragon and Saphira's help, Arya manages to slay this new shade (making her the fourth person to ever kill a shade and survive by Eragon's reckoning).

During this confrontation, Eragon and Saphira are periodically immobilized by thoughts and feelings from Glaedr as he and Oromis confront Murtagh and Thorn.  Suddenly, Galbatorix speaks to them through Murtagh, and slays them.  Glaedr finds himself trapped within his Eldunari with his grief over losing his life partner.

I remember years ago, when I was waiting for Brisingr to be published, that Christopher Paolini was on record saying that the story was too big to fit into one book, and so needed to be split into two.  While I have not yet read Inheritance, having read Brisingr, I can say that is most likely not true.  While yes, a lot does happen in Brisingr, there's a lot of padding to the story.  Eragon (and Arya) running through the Empire went on far longer than it needed to.  There was even a whole chapter where they sat around a fire and Arya talked about her life (and while it could have been interesting, it dragged and really wasn't).  That's followed by Eragon running off to the dwarves almost immediately (yawn, been there, done that already). There were a few chapters from Saphira's perspective (which hasn't happened before); while kind of interesting to see how Saphira views the world, they didn't actually add anything to the story (and we later get those flashes from Glaedr once he gives up his Eldunari to Saphira and Eragon which would have given the same glimpse into dragon life in a much more meaningful context). And a whole lot of stuff happening that just doesn't feel very important; not a good feeling for a reader to get when your characters are literally embroiled in a world war. :/

I was also sad that the Ra'zac are no more.  The fight happened early in the book and felt too easy; plus the story was robbed of their menacing presence.  They would have been a more worthy end fight for the book than some random shade shoved into the last 20 pages.

But while a huge chunk of the book was slow and boring, there were some really cool things in it.  I loved the political stuff with the dwarves and actually wished there had been more of that (seeing how Orik and company tried to get votes would have been quite interesting).  Orik's speech telling the other clan leaders about the assassination attempt on Eragon's life and getting the clan responsible banished was masterful.  Orik was definitely my favourite character in this book.

While yes, the villain of this book was random, having Eragon and Saphira trying to fight the shade while also getting distracted by Glaedr and Oromis was well done (and made the shade fight have a bit more weight - would they actually be able to vanquish this one or would the distractions get them killed?)

So while I had some major issues with this book through a lot of it, and was seriously contemplating either stopping part way through or not finishing the series, I'm now on board to see how this all ends.  Hopefully Inheritance will be a satisfying conclusion to the Inheritance Cycle!

Eldest

I'm not going to lie, it felt very, very good to cross a book off the List.  Eldest is the first book I've crossed off of it in a long, long time (I haven't crossed anything off since Sharon Shinn's Royal Airs last June!)

Alright. Eldest.  This book was quite the ride.  The first chapter starts off with some utter craziness: three days after the battle in Eragon, Eragon's back is still hurt from the shade Durza; it randomly shoots excruciating pain through him.  No one knows how or why this is happening because his back is otherwise fine.  Then Ajihad, the leader of the Varden, gets slain while returning from hunting Urgals (I had a really hard time with this point: why the heck did Ajihad go hunting them while his second in command stayed back with the rest of the Varden? And how the heck did Urgals sneak up on them in such large numbers when they were specifically HUNTING the Urgals????  It kind of gets explained at a later point in the book in a hand-wavey way, but really, this still seems super unbelievable to me).  In that same attack, the Twins (the Varden's best magicians) and Murtagh are kidnapped.  Arya chases the Urgals but cannot catch them (because sure?); all she finds is their blood soaked clothes.

Ajihad had not appointed a successor.  And so the Council of Elders decide to name his daughter, Nasuada, as the new leader.  The Council intends to use her as a puppet, and try to trap Eragon into swearing fealty to them; he instead swears fealty to Nasuada, thus cementing her own power, making her largely free of the Council's meddling.  From there, Eragon is sent to the elves in order to continue his training now that Brom has been slain.

Eragon is accompanied by Arya, the elf girl, and Orik, the dwarf who saved him from being killed by Urgals.  He is also offered membership into Orik's (and the dwarven king Hrothgar's) clan, an honour never before bestowed to a human (although Eragon and Saphira suspect it's to also lay claim to him as a rider); Eragon ultimately accepts this honour, and is so taught knowledge of the dwarves that no outsider has ever before learned.  Eragon, Saphira, and Orik make their way to Ellesmera, the capital of the Elves, where Eragon learns that Arya is an elven princess (because of course she is), and that there is a rider of old still alive: the elf Oromis, and the gold dragon Glaedr.  The pair were injured by the Forsworn when Galbatorix destroyed the Riders of old; while they can no longer fight, they have been in hiding waiting to teach the next Rider.

While Eragon and Saphira are learning from Oromis and Glaedr, the book jumps to Eragon's cousin, Roran.  The Ra'zac have returned to Carvahall, this time looking for Roran.  Most of the village refuses to give him up.  When it becomes clear the Ra'zac and their soldiers aren't leaving, Roran and some of the other villagers decide to fight back.  The village comes under siege, and the villagers give as good as they get.  Unfortunately, during this time, Roran asked Katrina, the love of his life, to marry him.  He didn't do the proper thing and ask her father for his blessing first though (not that Sloan probably would have given it - Sloan didn't like Eragon and Roran's family).  Sloan finds out when he discovers Katrina in the group of women, children, and elderly who were going to hide in the Spine (he forbade her to go, but Roran asked her to anyway because he didn't want anything to happen to her - she only agreed if he agrees to never again ask such a thing of her again because her place is with him).  After basically disowning her, the Ra'zac attack that night and kidnap her; Roran and the other villagers give chase (even though Roran was wounded) and find that Sloan betrayed them to the Ra'zac in order to get his daughter back.  The Ra'zac, Slaon, and Katrina then fly away on the Ra'zac's fierce mounts.  In the aftermath, Roran convinces the villagers to abandon Carvahall to go seek refuge with the Varden in the South (he wants to both protect them and find Katrina, but he cannot do both if the villagers remain, especially knowing that more soldiers are on their way).  The majority are convinced. And so they go on a perilous journey first through the Spine, then South along the coast.

I'm not going to lie, when the book first changed view points to Roran, I was a bit annoyed.  But honestly, the siege of Carvahall and their journey South was really cool, and far more interesting than anything Eragon was up to.

The book also periodically switched to Nasuada's viewpoint.  The Varden had relocated to Surda as planned.  While Surda had given them what it could, the Varden were in dire financial straits; Nasuada ended up solving this problem by getting her magicians to manufacture cheap lace.  By selling it (both in Surda and the Empire), the Varden were able to fund their war efforts!

Nasuada's story also dealt with the child Eragon and Saphira "blessed" in the last book.  Eragon's blessing was said erroneously, and the child is now cursed to take on the pain of everyone around her.  She actually made herself grow up faster because as a baby she could do nothing.  It was very strange, but also pretty interesting.

Like with Roran, I wasn't exactly thrilled to read about Nasuada at first.  But her story also proved more interesting than Eragon's.  I'll admit it here: pretty much everyone in the book except Eragon (and honestly at times, even Saphira....I did not like her as much in this book) was more interesting than Eragon.

So while all that's going on, Eragon and Saphira are training (and Eragon is mooning after Arya, even though she has told him she's not interested.  I don't know how many times she's told him no and he keeps trying anyway after promising he won't.  I really hope he doesn't end up with her in the end!  Like geeze dude, no means no).  The book doesn't go into what Saphira learns like at all, but Eragon learns much (including reading and writing in the old language, which opens him up to much philosophy, and through meditation he learns to feel the minds of every living thing around him).  But during all of this, his back still pains him (and might be getting worse? I don't know, I really didn't get it beyond "magic").  But at an elven celebration, the magic of the dragons heals him and transforms him basically into an elf; his back is healed, he is stronger and more powerful than a human, and even his features become elvish.

Around this time, Eragon discovers that the Varden are going to be attacked by a massive army from the Empire.  After agreeing to return to finish his training when time permits, Eragon, Orik, and Saphira fly South to meet the Varden.  During the massive battle (where Roran's ship shows up in time, like I figured it would, lol), it's revealed that the Empire has a second dragon and Rider.  Eragon and Saphira fight them but are overpowered.  Eragon realizes that the other Rider fights in a familiar way; he manages to get the Rider's helmet off and discovers that it is Murtagh (shock!)!  Murtagh had been kidnapped by the Twins (who used the Urgals to kidnap him and kill Ajihad) and brought to Galbatorix.  One of the dragon eggs hatched for him, and so both Murtagh and his dragon were forced to swear fealty to Galbatorix in the ancient language (which binds you).  Murtagh reveals that he is (as I guessed) Eragon's brother.  He is in fact, the Eldest brother (lol, I'm not going to lie, it took me a bit to get it, lol).  After overpowering Eragon and Saphira (he has apparently learned crazy things from Galbatorix), Murtagh reveals that Galbatorix wants Saphira (Galbatorix and Murtagh's dragons are both male, as is the last remaining egg), Murtagh leaves, but warns Eragon that he will probably not be able to let them go should they ever meet again.

The book ends with Eragon getting over his shock that he is related to Morzan (the leader of the Forsworn) and telling Arya, and Nasuada what happened, Eragon is reunited with Roran (oops, forgot to mention that Roran single-handedly killed the Twins, who were rampaging around the battlefield).  The two, who agree they are more family than Murtagh and Morzan, agree to go rescue Katrina and kill the Ra'zac, thus avenging their father, Garrow.

While reading Eldest, I was repeatedly struck by how it isn't exactly a "good" book.  The writing (like in Eragon) is often clunky, being full of instances where things are told (this is particularly bad when someone says something, then it is told to someone else.  It happens all the time and is honestly quite annoying to read - couldn't there have been some way to make this more interesting, at least some of the time?)  The book also felt pretty preachy at times (this was particularly bad first when Eragon decides not to eat meat (I can't remember the exact line, but it was a patronizing "I won't look down on others for eating meat."  Yes you will, Eragon, that's what you always do), and when Oromis was explaining how the elves don't believe in gods, man did it sound kind of propaganda-ish while also seeming like they look down on anyone who does believe in gods).  And I honestly kind of hate Eragon.  He's constantly looking down on people in this thinly disguised veneer of pity, which gets especially pronounced once he's got the strength and reflexes of an elf (ugh, how he looked down on the Varden's magicians and how they struggled with things he now finds easy - again, his arrogance was hidden under a weird thin pretense of sympathy for them.  He's so patronizing and criticizing to Saphira.  I hate him so much!)

But overall, I did enjoy the book (when talking to a friend who has read it, I called it "mind candy" - you kind of just shut your brain off and enjoy the ride).  As I already said, I especially liked the stuff from the other characters' perspectives.  How Roran became the respected leader of Carvahall (while also becoming a scary berserker) was very interesting to read; I wish there had been more of his journey through the Spine and down the coast. After my initial displeasure of having the narrative shift to him or Nasuada, I quite looked forward to their chapters to see either what was happening with Carvahall or with the Varden's war effort (I honestly wish there had been a bit more of Nasuada).  I liked Oromis and Glaedr (the idea of war vet dragon and rider is super cool); I just wish we had gotten some chapters from their perspective.  Oh, and the Ra'zac are even cooler than I could have imagined: the humanoid ones who talk are the larvae, and their "flying steeds" are actually their parents.  That's so cool!!!!!  Apparently the parents are as smart as any dragon, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they'll be like in action in the next book(s).

And while the stuff with Murtagh was largely predictable, I'm quite interested to see where it all leads; he's a fantastic character in a crazy position (being forced to join/serve the one person he absolutely hates) and I'm hoping he and his dragon, Thorn, can get free.

So now that Roran and Eragon are reunited, I'm honestly looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here!  I just hope the narrative doesn't stick with Eragon the entire time.

Eragon

I originally read Christopher Paolini's Eragon when it first came out, before the second book, Eldest, was even published.  At a guess, this was sometime in 2005, a few years before I started this blog.  So unfortunately I don't remember what exactly I thought of it (although I remember liking it well enough).  It was recommended to me at the time by a friend (we went to see the movie together, too).  I bought Eldest when it first came out, too, but decided not to read it because I knew the series was supposed to be a trilogy; at that time I decided I wanted to wait until book three came out before continuing on.  Then book three was split into two (much like what happened with Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles; that seemed to be a trend in books at the time).  And since the books are so big (book 1 is about 500 pages), it was really hard to get myself to go back to them, especially knowing that I had to reread Eragon before getting to the newer books.  But thanks to the global pandemic that's happening right now, this seemed like a good time to actually go back and reread it.

Eragon is the story of a farm boy (? it's a weird distinction because he's first portrayed as a hunter) who finds a dragon egg.  The egg hatches, and he finds himself suddenly thrust into the larger world with enemies everywhere fighting to control him.  His only help is the storyteller, Brom, an older man who lived in Eragon's little village but has many secrets of his own.  Together the two of them head out on a quest of vengeance, with Brom doing everything he can to prepare Eragon for the larger world in which he's suddenly part of.

In a lot of ways, Eragon is very much the typical "boy from nowhere is actually the chosen one" kind of tale.  I'd even go so far as to say Eragon himself is a Mary Sue kind of character (his sword fighting progresses over a couple of months so he's now one of the best human sword fighters around! He's the youngest Dragon Riders to start using magic!  He learns to read in a week! He's destined for a great romance!  That sort of thing - I suspect he's also of noble birth...my guess is actually the second and unknown son of the King's second in command.  We'll see if I'm right).  He's also one of the most whiny teenagers imaginable.  Through the first half of the book he's honestly pretty unlikable (although I don't blame him from some of his frustrations - Brom in particular doesn't tell him things pretty much "just because" and it's annoying from a reading standpoint).

While I don't remember my thoughts on the book the first time around, I'm pretty sure Eragon annoyed me back then, too. Thankfully he's surrounded by far more interesting characters.  Saphira, the dragon, is a lot of fun.  Although she is much younger than Eragon, she's infinitely more wiser; plus she has a great sense of humour.  I also really liked Brom (outside of his "not telling you things just because" thing); he's a fun character who has no problem with gently making fun of Eragon so he learns.  (Now I don't know if it's because I read the book years ago and kind of remembered Brom's story, or if the writing was just super predictable, but I did know a lot of what Brom was keeping hidden - but that didn't detract from the story at all).  Murtagh, the random swordsman who helps Eragon and Brom and later becomes close friends with Eragon, is likewise a very intriguing character with a great backstory (I also loved his reasoning for refusing to submit to anyone entering his mind: "My mind is the one sanctuary that has not been stolen from me. Men have tried to breach it before, but I've learned to defend it vigorously, for I am safe with my innermost thoughts. You have asked for the one thing I cannot give, least of all to those two" (405)).  I would love to follow his story far more than Eragon's!

The other character of note is the elf, Arya.  She's most likely the great love interest.  I don't have much of an opinion on her at this point though since she hasn't done much but be rescued by Eragon and company, test Eragon's battle prowess, and help in the final battle of the book (which honestly ended up a bit weird - she stayed to get Saphira's damaged armor off while Eragon ran ahead....shouldn't Eragon have helped HIS dragon while the super powerful elf goes ahead?  Also, he kind of steals her kill (the shade) - she demanded it because of what he did to her).  I'm hoping she'll prove to be more interesting in the later books...

I also found the books villain, the Shade Durza, rather interesting as well (although he's not in it all that much).  He actually goes hand in hand with the really cool worldbuilding Paolini did for this book: the villains.  The main world has the typical elves, dwarves, dragons and men.  But the bad guys have shades (sorcerers who accidentally let spirits take over their bodies and become evil), a Dragon Rider who went mad after his dragon died (and took down the whole Order, declaring himself King/Emperor), the Ra'zac (who make me think of Skeksis), and the Urgals (who I suspect are just Orcs, but it still gives the world its own flavour).  Some very cool stuff going on here.

So while the first half of the book is kind of hard to get into (again, thanks to Eragon being a whiny kid who's inexplicably good at everything), by the end I did enjoy the story (thanks in large part to all the other characters).  Hopefully the momentum built up in the second half of Eragon carries through to book 2!