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Title: Tolkien, this is not
Review: With Eragon, Christopher Paolini has attempted to write the next great epic fantasy of our time. He's taken all the usual ingredients; dragons, elves, dwarves, evil spirits who can't bear daylight, a fantastical new world, a wise, mysterious guide, and a young boy with a mysterious heritage, and mashed them together into a 500+ page novel. But in the end, Eragon is like so many other Tolkien-esque epic fantasies: all epic, and no magic. The story dragged on, and even when I skimmed whole chapters I couldn't make myself sit all the way through it. I've tried to read it twice now, and I've given up both times.Paolini's prose and plot aren't rotten; they just failed to grab my attention. If you haven't read a lot of epic fantasy, you'll probably like this. But for those of us who have ... this is pretty much a "been there, done that," kind of story. There is nothing new under the sun, but most authors can put a twist on the same old devices and make them seem new. Paolini didn't.
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