Brisingr is the sequel to Eldest and the third installment in Christopher
Paolini's Inheritance trilogy, oops I mean Inheritance cycle...(I wonder how many early editions of
Eragon were published with that subtext). Despite
Paolini's amateur predictability, lack of originality, and the transposing of his weird quirks onto his fictional characters,
Brisingr was compelling and very enjoyable. Mind you, it's nothing special, but as I've said before, I'm a sucker for swords and sorcery and dragon action (that sounds a bit sordid). And there's plenty of that in this novel, climaxing with an exciting battle between the ancient rider
Oromis and his gold dragon
Glaedr against the traitor
Murtagh and his red dragon Thorn. And for the first time we get to encounter the infamous dark king,
Galbatorix - albeit through his possession of another character viewed at a distance by means of a psychic link.
Hmm that seems
unnecessarily complicated. Anyway, the book is better paced than its predecessor Eldest, but still falls into stretches of irritatingly boring chapters this time concentrating on
Varden and Dwarf politics. The scenes with
Roran's rise to prominence among the
Varden are compelling and well done, but all of the focus on the
Varden leader
Nasuada is little short of worthless (she is really one of the most uninteresting characters that I've ever read in fantasy fiction). The battles and scenes of magic are sufficiently exciting, and the plot feels well planned. But what is up with
Eragon's wussy,
momma's boy relationship with
Saphira? Makes me wonder if
Paolini feels his mother didn't give him enough attention when he was little. And you gotta love the awkward attempts at humor
personified in the character of Angela the fortune teller, all of which reinforce my conclusion that home schooling your children socially retards them. In spite of its weaknesses (probably more apparent to me because I am insanely
jealous of the author's quick success at such a young age)
Brisingr is an enthralling story which I very much enjoyed. On a scale of 1-10,
Brisingr scores an 8.