Brisingr by Christopher Paolina

Christopher De Paolini's third book in the Inheritance Cycle is a marked improvement from his last book Eldest, but ultimately suffers from the same flaws.

First let me start by saying Eragon was wonderful, the book pulled me in and left me wanting more. Eldest on the other hand was only satisfying because I was desperate to hear more about Eragon, the plot in Eldest was forgettable at best and groan worthy at worst (the whole Luke- I am your father rip-off, c'mon really?) Brisingr, also has some groan worthy surprises (don't worry I won't tell you what they are I'll let you suffer thru them on your own terms). Also, like Eldest the story seems to drag on without any clear direction at time (I cite the lenghty foray into dwarven politics as a shining example- and if you're wondering no nothing surprising happens feel free to skip those 100 pages if you like). However, the story had it's strong points as well. For example Eragon's character is pretty freakin' rad. I enjoyed all the battle sequences with him punching thru shields, leaping over walls and cleaving things in half. He also has a dragon and she's always blowing fire and eating things, that's pretty sweet too. *Mild spoiler alert, skip to end of paragraph to avoid* His new sword, also freakin' rad. It lights on fire whenever he says it's name (disappointingly it's name is fire) and it plays an integral role in the aforementioned cleaving things / enemies in half.

If Eldest had been the first book in the series, I wouldn't have read the next book, Brisingr however, is good enough it to pass the first book test and I would continue reading the series based on it's merits alone. Give Brisingr to fantasy buffs, dragon aficionados and people who like saying words like "oathbound," "shadeslayer," or "aye" grades 6+

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by Patrick