The One with Brisingr

156. Title & Author: Brisingr (Book 3 of the Inheritance Cycle) by Christopher Paolini (763 pages)

Genre: Fiction--Fantasy & Adventure

Completed: 5 September 2010

Summary & Review:

The battle against the Empire and the Black King Galbatorix continues. Eragon, the last free Dragon Rider, returns to the service of the Varden, the combined rebel forces, after helping his cousin Roran rescue his betrothed deep in enemy territory. The leader of the rebel army sends Eragon to the mountainous home of the Dwarfs to ensure that they elect a king sympathetic to their cause. His journey is long and lonely without the accompaniment of his dragon and help-meet, Saphira, but it is ultimately successful. With the Dwarfs on their side, Eragon needs just one last thing in order to prepare to slay the Black King: a sword worthy of a Dragon Rider.

At first, I felt like this book was little more than a rip off of Tolkien's master works. The Elves and Dwarfs were essentially identical to those in The Lord of the Rings, and so much of Alagaësia felt like it was torn from Middle Earth. After I got over that, however, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Paolini definitely writes firmly in the Fantasy genre and style. He has very formal prose when writing dialogue, he crafted rich histories and customs for all his many races and cultures, and his story was equal parts mystery and adventure. Not to mention the fact that this was a hefty tome. I remember sitting in the Sampler Reading Room in the Brigham Young University library and looking at the Fantasy section. All of the books were huge, and this book would fit right in.

Although this series revolves around the character of Eragon, my favorite parts of the novel were those that followed Roran, Eragon's cousin. Roran was a great character and the events that he was involved in were action packed and immensely entertaining. To me, the best part about fantasy books is that they can transport you to another world, and the scenes with Roran were the portions of the book that I felt that the strongest.

I didn't think I would enjoy this book as much as I did, so I wasn't too worried about the fact that I started the series on book 3, rather than going back and starting on the first book. But, now I have to backtrack and read books 1 and 2 and hope that I can still fully enjoy those despite knowing what comes later.

Rating: 8.0