Paolini's "Eldest"

[Joe Bento]

I think that most any fantasy story will be compared to or accused of 
borrowing from Lord of the Rings.  

I had the pleasure of meeting Christopher Paolini just a couple days 
ago at a signing in Salt Lake City.  He is quite a fascinating 
individual.  His years of home schooling must have been effective, as 
he seems extremely intelligent for his age. 

He is overly grateful to his fans, since it seems he still can't 
quite believe himself that he has been so successful thus far.  It 
was a pleasure to meet an individual so personal.  

Is anyone familiar with the graphic novel series, Elfquest?  Elfquest 
was written over 25 years ago as a novel in comic book form by Windi 
Pini.  As I was reading Eragon, I noticed strong similarities to 
Elfquest as well as Lord of the Rings.   I guess I'm not a writer 
because I couldn't think of something entirely unique that included 
elves, dwarves, etc. that would entirely separate my work from the 
past work of others.

One thing regarding the name Eragon - I don't think Paolini's 
inspiration was from Aragorn.  Since Paolini was writing a story 
involving dragons, he just shifted the first letter of the word 
dragon by one letter.  



--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Laura Ingalls Huntley 
<lhuntley at f...> wrote:
> Alla:
> > Have anybody finished the Eldest? I am curious to know what others
> > think.
> >
> > If I were to sum up my impressions, I would say that I did enjoy 
hte
> > story - I had  a hard time putting the book down, but I would wish
> > for
> > more in character development department.
> >
> > To me, even Eragon does not have truly multifaceted personality.
> 
> I finished it a couple of weeks ago.  I did it in one sitting, so I 
> certainly argee that it was a hard-to-put-down book.  On the other 
> hand, aspects of Paolini's writing remain distinctly immature -- 
he's 
> grown a *lot* since ERAGON, but he's still got a ways to go 
(especially 
> in, as you say, the character development department).
> 
> However, the biggest problem *I* have with his writing is how 
heavily 
> he 'borrows' from other fantasies, notably THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  
Now, 
> don't get me wrong, I'm all for borrowing.  No new stories, &c.  
The 
> trick is to make it your own to the extent that the reader doesn't 
> *notice* any strong similarities.  IMO, Paolini really failed at 
this 
> in ERAGON and, to some extent, in ELDEST too.
> 
> I mean, the least he could have done would have been to make his 
proper 
> and place names seem unique.  Farthen Dur?  Gimme a break.  Not to 
> mention that "Eragon" is about an "r" away from "Aragorn".  He's 
just 
> *asking* for accusations of unoriginality.
> 
> Unfortunately, in ELDEST, he was stuck with a lot of the choices he 
> made in ERAGON (place names, characteristics of his races, &c), so 
> although he had matured a lot as a writer, there was only so much 
he 
> could do to make his story more original.
> 
> It's kinda too bad, IMO, that he started so young.  Maybe if he 
were 
> older, he would have had the confidence and experience to be able 
to 
> write the Inheritance trilogy the way it *could* have been 
written.  As 
> it is, I doubt he'll get another shot at writing an epic fantasy 
that 
> is popular with the masses.
> 
> Laura
> 
> P.S. His vocabulary makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.