Review: #252
Title: Inheritance
Series: Inheritance Cycle - 4th and final book
Author: Christopher Paolini
Read Before: no
My Comments: Wow, the final book of the Inheritance Cycle, one that I have been looking forward to reading, and enjoy the ending to this long series. The final confrontation of Galbatorix has been one, which I expect a lot of people would be waiting for. That said… there are just a bit too many things that barricade me from enjoying it. Most, if not all, of the reasons have to do with the author’s writing style. The author has gone overboard. The book is simply too long, similarly with previous books, it’s filled with too many events that simply do not add to the story in a meaningful way. It is worse here, it’s the longest book in the series, and when you have been spending the three preceding books and most of the fourth and final one, building upon this confrontation, would you GET ON with it. And not only the events, the author pads it out even more by including elaborate, painstaking descriptions, filled with fluffy words that is pointless. By no means bad pieces of writing, but most of the parts that focused on Roran we could do without. It broke the pace, as with the cliffhangers at the end of chapters before changing the character views. Again, it’s a style of writing and while it worked, it was the length and time taken that caused it to be frustrating to bear. For the 800+ pages of the novel, only 40 pages related to the confrontation with Galbatorix, and most of it was talking and Eragon’s fight with Murtagh. The way Galbatorix was defeated, though plausible, was a bit of an anticlimax. There was no fight between Eragon and Galbatorix, zip at all. Needless to say, four books in and that was how this massive threat ended? It’s not so much a disappointment but that the author could have fleshed it out a bit (he fleshed out everything BUT this event that the whole series revolves around). The ending felt like The Lord of the Rings, it was long, way too long. I get that the author provides plenty of closure with a lot of loose ends, but again, it would have been nice if it was done more swiftly. You lose the adrenaline from the climax, and by halfway through, you’re drained and felt that it’s been dragged on for far too long. Thankfully, there is less overuse of the Ancient language in which it forces you to go to a translation glossary at the back to find out the meaning. I hated the flipping of pages to find out what one word or phrase meant. The author should have stuck with his own world and not have fallen into the trap of bringing in more complex real world stuff, where it feels contrived (like the world is round and physics). The author’s twists have too much cliché, I promise you, you will cringe. Another trademark of the series, way too much foreshadowing, and the surprise weapon to bolster the strength of Eragon was easily guessed (although the author did cause doubt to your thoughts at one point). Especially when the Vault of Souls was mentioned waaaay back in the first book “Eragon” and how pretty much you were expecting it to appear from each book onwards, it was another anticlimax, not as impressive as you would like. That’s the problem I had, I expected way more, I expected myself to be impressed and wowed by what the author promised to reveal, and my expectations were set too high, it did not deliver. The ending was sad, and you empathise with Eragon, however, it kind of sets a good point for a sequel series… Nevertheless I enjoyed reading the book; sure there were things (and plot elements) that felt a bit weak and wonky, but for the most part, a good book to read (albeit a bit too long, it felt as if the author had pretty much burnt himself out by the end). One more thing to point out, while it’s good to read, like the rest of the series, it’s not worth rereading since there are just too many unnecessarily prolonged bits.
Rating: 7/10