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Title: Familiar characters
Review: One word best describes this book: Derivative. The author didn't have to do very much description of his fantasy world because all the players were "borrowed" from other authors' worlds --- especially Tolkien's. Paolini didn't have to explain the relationship between elves & humans & dwarves, since Tolkien fans already know all that. Fine; it's fan-fiction. But I was very disappointed that Paolini didn't give Tolkien a mention in his Acknowledgements section.Paolini even tried to mimic LotR by including some "translated" elvish poetry. That was by far the most embarrassing part of this book. Prose was stilted (really needed some professional editing), but the poetry was just . . . awful. Glad it was only attempted once.Despite the book's flaws, I did enjoy the story line, and did read the book all the way through. I may even borrow a copy of "The Eldest" when it comes out. But I would not pay money for it.
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