Twice each year I run a book fair at the elementary school attended by my children. With each fair I notice an increase in one particular genre of book for the upper grades. Fantasy. Stand alone novels, series, light, dark, you name it. I’ve come to understand that fantasy novels are filling a niche – recreational reading material for nine to eleven year olds with high reading levels. More and more kids seem to fit this description each year, reading one, two, three or more grade levels above their chronological age. Yet reading at the level of an eighth grader does not mean that these kids have any interest in typical teen “coming of age” stories. Socially, they’re still ten years old. Fantasy can perfectly suit their wish for more sophisticated material without focusing on social issues in which they have no interest. A stellar example of such a book is Eragon.

Written by, at the time, fifteen (!) year old Christopher Paolini, Eragon could be described as a fantasy coming of age story, filled with magic and adventure. Eragon is a boy, abandoned by his mother as an infant, who is being raised on the outskirts of Carvahall by his uncle. Carvahall is far from the heart of this land, Alagaësia, the center of which is Urû’baen, where King Galbatorix reigns through fear and force. The citizens of Carvahall and the surrounding valley do not support this king, yet feel fairly removed from the more devilish workings of the empire. The setting here is essentially medieval in tone, filled with peasants and forts and the general lack of hygiene one would expect in such a time. Eragon is a regular boy, living a rural life, one that will change abruptly.

As our tale opens, the citizenry eagerly await the yearly arrival of the traders. Though late, they eventually arrive with their supply of goods to be bought and sold in order for the people of the valley to stock up for the winter. A general sense of revelry surrounds the coming of the traders, despite rumors of an ill wind blowing from the heart of the empire. It is old Brom, the storyteller, who introduces the essence of our story during these festivities, spinning a tale of treachery and intrigue detailing the king’s rise to power. During the visit of the traders, Eragon acquires a stone, a most unusual stone, a stone that will change everything. For it isn’t a stone, but a dragon’s egg. Dragons, which have been long since gone from the lands and skies of Alagaësia, or so (nearly) everyone thought. Soon the long arm of Galbatorix reaches out and destroys the safe, small world that has sheltered Eragon for his entire life. He is now adrift, his only mission to bring to justice those who have done him harm.

What follows is the tale of great adventure, filled with magic and magical creatures. There is the omnipresent battle of good vs. evil, though Eragon must determine who exactly belongs to which camp. And if things are really as simple as good vs. evil. Most importantly, he must decide what his role will be in this rapidly unfolding intrigue.

The character of Eragon is rich and full. He is at times a child, at times a surly teenager, at times a bright foreshadow of the adult he could become. He’s a special boy in many ways and struggles both with that knowledge and with the responsibilities he must sometimes unwillingly assume. Paolini doesn’t make the mistake of turning Eragon from a bewildered child into a powerful leader overnight. This is the story of a journey. Or, to be more precise, part of a journey, for this is but the first installment of Eragon’s tale (the series is set to be a trilogy, called the Inheritance trilogy, the second part of which - Eldest - is set to be published in August of 2005). Eragon learns and matures slowly, through his series of adventures, adjusting to this arduous life with difficulty.

The peripheral characters are fun and vary from elves and dwarves (much in the vein of Tolkien, but with enough differences to avoid feeling like a total rip-off) to Urgals (again, similar to Orcs, but not precisely enough to harm the story) to dragons, Shades and the Ra’zac. Some good, some horribly evil, all with their own sets of abilities and weaknesses. Paolini doesn’t shy away from the idea that bad things can happen to good characters, so there is a nice tension set up when the “good guys” are in peril – sometimes that peril proves fatal. For the most part, I’m guesstimating that the writing is at about an eighth grade level – there is some relatively difficult vocabulary, particularly in light of the novel situations and names for objects and abilities. Kids need to be good enough readers to infer meaning from the text; things are not always spelled out in simple terms. The book is also quite a tome, clocking in at nearly 500 pages. Knowing how kids and adults alike plow through the scores of pages in Harry Potter novels I can’t see this as a big drawback. It is something to note, however, when deciding whether Eragon is a good choice for your child. The story moves along at a brisk pace, keeping the reader involved and engaged. If there’s one place Paolini falters, it’s in his descriptions of locations. Not every one, but some of the more exotic locales are described with such bewildering intricacy that it’s nearly impossible to form a mental picture. It feels very much like the author simply gets carried away with writing what he sees in his own mind, losing the reader in the process. This is a minor failing, but does affect how a battle or encounter is fleshed out – if we can’t picture where we are, it’s difficult to picture the logistics of a crisis or battle as he describes them within some labyrinthine city or building or mountain pass.

Eragon, overall, is a fun and exciting read for both older kids and adults. The characters are full and interesting, the situations generally novel and inventive. Though Paolini does suffer from an occasional bout of verbal diarrhea when it comes to his locations, I hope that some judicious editing as well as a few more years under the author’s belt will smooth this out by the time the next installment is published. He shows remarkable maturity already in this book, and I for one can’t wait to see where this young man takes his quite remarkable talent. Eragon is an excellent book for those young readers ready for a literary challenge, but not interested in the crushes and turmoil and all-around social mania that often fills books written for teens. It also makes for a very fine read-aloud. I read this with my son, he reading one chapter to me, me reading the next to him, and we both enjoyed the book tremendously (this also gave me the opportunity to help him figure out some of the more obscure vocabulary or puzzle through a plot point). It’s a wonderful, fun book, and an excellent debut from young Christopher Paolini.




Many thanks to Dave for sharing his knowledge of the fantasy genre with me for this review. He is truly the Guru of Fantasy.


Recommended: Yes