Eragon – Christopher Paolini
Northern Lights – Philip Pullman
Stormbreaker – Anthony Horowitz
Emma – Jane Austen (Clueless)
Shawshank Redemption – Stephen King

So what’s intriguing about newly published author Leslie Y. Shen?  Well, for starters, she’s only a high school student.

I admit I loved reading Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, but it never occurred to me that a talent to match his existed out there.  And it doesn’t.  Not for now, at any rate.

Ms. Shen is not on a level with Christopher Paolini.  Do I believe she’ll get to that point sometime later in her career?  Probably, and I look forward to seeing it happen.  In terms of Shen’s debut novella, however, she won’t command the same kind of audience that Paolini does.  Baby Talk, as Shen’s book is titled, will appeal most to a sharply defined group of young, culturally aware readers.

It’s set right here in Palo Alto, Calif., or as the young writer describes it, the town under the “soul-saving sun.”  Here where the kids are trained to be everything and more, protagonist Sophia copes with inadequacy– not to mention identity, love, and general angst.  When she is not being an artist, studying, or remaining firmly silent about physical harassment suffered at the hands of a classmate, she ponders iconic questions of the 21st century:  Where do I belong?  How Asian am I, really? What does it mean to be a woman, and why can’t it be different?  Will I be successful?  How about happy?  Are boyfriends overrated?

The existence led by Sophia and company is a colorful one, despite it being absolutely mundane.  Reality’s there, but at the same time, the characters aren’t really tuned in to it.  Instead they drift “back and forth and sideways” through complex family histories and memories that are touchingly painful in spite of their extreme innocence.

And that’s one of the few complaints one could make about Baby Talk.  It’s baby talk, and yet it isn’t.  Shen is young and inexperienced, and it shows.  At the same time, her obviously naive outlook on life is expressed with language to rival that of many established writers.  Her prose is lyrical, passionate, precocious, sweet– and all carefully constructed to be as ambiguous as possible.  Shen wants her readers to think analytically.

That’s not to say, of course, that you shouldn’t get wrapped up in the story.  It’s a beautiful story, though light on plot, and you get to know several generations’ worth of strong women through the structure of the book.  There are moments of laughter and friendship, but ultimately Shen is ambitious in trying to tackle the sweeping concepts:  love, existence, sexuality, race, happiness, death, forgiveness.  I’m sure her handling of the suicide topic will be controversial in Palo Alto, as will her seemingly anti-adult sentiments.  It’s unclear, however, whether or not she believes what she has written.

As a whole, Baby Talk is an impressive piece of writing.  It has kinks, but the author is stylistically spot-on.  Quick read, best for advanced readers (I’d guess at age groups anywhere in high school or college).  I recommend reading some of the passages several times for the full effect.  The retail price is a bit high, but you might try contacting Ms. Shen herself and asking for a discounted (or free, if you really make an impression)  copy.  I was actually able to chat with the author.  Perfectly nice young lady.

Baby Talk by Leslie Y. Shen

113 pages.  Young adult fiction, literary fiction, Asian, women’s fiction.

Available in paperback ($19.99) and hardcover ($29.99) at Xlibris online.  Coming soon to Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online.

Contact the author:  lshen10@paly.net

Teenaged author Leslie Shen released her debut piece, Baby Talk, earlier this month.

Título: Eragon
Autor: Christopher Paolini
Género: Fantasia
Tamanho: 480
Formato: Pdf

Eragon, de Christopher Paolini, é o primeiro volume da Trilogia da Herança. Lançado com estrondoso sucesso nos Estados Unidos e Canadá, onde foram comercializados 2,5 milhões de exemplares, o romance de estreia de Christopher Paolini já foi vendido para 38 países e licenciado para o cinema.

Eragon é uma história repleta de acção, perigosos vilões e locais fantásticos. Com dragões e elfos, cavaleiros, lutas de espadas, inesperadas revelações e, claro, uma linda donzela que é muito bem capaz de cuidar de si própria. O protagonista, de quinze anos, é um pacato rapaz do campo, que ao encontrar na floresta uma pedra azul polida, se vê da noite para o dia no meio de uma disputa pelo poder do Império, na qual ele é peça principal.

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Ok, me tengo que dejar de enganchar con sagas de libros, no es sano pero me gusta xD.

Me prestaron Eragon hace un par de meses, y hace un par de semanas lo terminé. Es increiblemente bueno y enganchate. Es fácil de leer, la historia es buena, atrapante, con un aire épico genial. Los personajes son carismáticos, queribles algunos, detestables otros. Tiene varios conflictos, se desarrollan, se resuelve el que plantea el libro y deja “enganche” para el resto de la saga.

¿De qué va? Soy mala haciendo sinopsis, quería simplemente dejar mi opinión personal. No quiero dejar mi opinión de la historia hasta tanto no termine la saga. Pero bien, más o menos.  La historia va sobre un muchacho de 15 años que vive en el reino legendario de Algaësia, reino gobernado por un tirano rey. El muchacho, de nombre Eragon, es un campesino que vive con su tío y su primo, puesto que su madre lo abandonó al nacer. Mientras estaba buscando algo para cazar en el bosque que se encuentra en el valle de una cadena montañosa horripilante y llena de mitos, una explosión desvía a su presa -que venía siguiendo por días- y revela una extraña gema. De mal humor, puesto que tendría que comprar carne al carnicero del pueblo, una persona muy desagradable, toma la gema. Intenta venderla, pero le ofertan o muy poco dinero, o no la aceptan por su procedencia supuestamente maldita. Así, el muchacho se queda con la gema, de la que luego de un tiempo, nace un dragón, animal se creía extinto desde hacía ya mucho tiempo, que lo convierte en Jinete de Dragón, llevándolo a tomar varias decisiones, enfrentándolo con asesinos mitológicos y, enfrentando al propio Imperio.

A esperar que me presten Eldest, y luego, Brisingr.

Just finished two Chuck Palahniuk novels. Lullaby, published in 2002, and Pygmy, 2009. Lullaby was interesting, with the premise of a poem collected and found in a children’s book was actually a culling song, and the explanation for SIDS, if read. That part was interesting. Other parts, creepy.  And characteristically gross.

Pygmy, told from the perspective of a foreign exchange student/terrorist operative, used uniquely mangled English to tell the tale.  That, and the terrorist training always tinting the perspective, such as any slight or perceived slight the person is given a mental blow of death, a different one for each person. Pygmy manages to kill at least a half dozen people, mentally, within five minutes of landing on American soil. Striking Cobra Quick Kill, Punching Panda, Barracuda Deadly Eye Gouge among them. But in some ways, this actually is a more light hearted book, believe it or not. Especially by Chuck P. standards. Take this example of the language:

“Force compelled to sing how yearning for location on top arched spectrum of light wavelengths created by precipitate. Exact song expressed Judy Garland, woeful martyr, slaughtered pawn of capitalist entertainment machine combined pharmaceutical complex.”

Okay, I found it amusing, the description of the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and describing Judy Garland as a woeful martyr, and the fact that she was even part of his terrorist training! All that in one paragraph.

But, be forewarned. These are still Chuck P. novels, complete with physical descriptions of things you don’t really want to envision, told in such fine (and probably) accurate detail, it leaves the taste of bile in your mouth. Well, at least it does for me. Makes me uncomfortable. Even if I do find it disgusting at times, I can still say as a writer that Mr. P is a very imaginative and detailed author. That’s what makes the works so affecting. Infecting. Once the images are placed in your brain, they are rather difficult to replace, erase or bury. Impactful.

If you can stomach it, go for it. Seems like he usually has one especially descriptive scene early in his novels, and that seems to be the worst one, trying to weed his non-devoted readers out. You can always do like I do during zombie movies, since slow shuffling zombie attacks freak me out (I will be useless when the zombie apocalypse happens) – fast forward! Or in the case of a book, skimming. Skim through the gross parts so you know when to pick back up again. Sure you miss a few details, but that’s the point.

On much lighter fare, I recently went to find Nursery Rhymes for another student of mine, since we are working on syllables and rhyming, only to find children’s books found at Target were completely abridged! Frequently the poems I could remember only had the first verse and then went on to a new one. I couldn’t tell you what the other verses were, they are never as memorable as the first, but I knew there were more!

So off to the library I went, to go find me The Real Mother Goose. Same cover I remember from my childhood, so I knew it was the right one. Poems unabridged. Phew. I just want to give my students the complete experience, not half-assed. I know they won’t remember the full poems either, but at least they will know they had more than one stanza!

And when checking out the book selection at Costco the other day, I noticed the hardback edition of book three of the Inheritance series is out, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. Sure, it covers familiar territory, as a combination of Anne McCaffrey and Tolkien most prominently, he creates a complete world involving dragons and dwarves and humans and their conflicts and their organizing good against evil, but I was blown away when reading the first book, since it was written by a teenager from Montana. Wrote the first draft when 15. How impressive is that? And a movie was made of it too, but I haven’t seen it yet. That was Eragon, sounding way too close to Aragorn in the Tolkien mythos, but ya know, there’s only so many sounds in the English language. It sounds like I’m dissing it, doesn’t it? I guess I am, a little, because it is such familiar territory, so I am looking forward to the third novel to see what is new in his world. And I am also completely in awe of his tenacity, courage, and dedication to write these hundreds of page tomes, and dream up his world. I respect and admire his efforts. He is 26 now, and working on the fourth book, according to his website. That is true dedication, and I am not dissing that. So I was happy to find a copy of that in the library too. Happy readings for me!

His face was now smooth and angled as an elf’s, with ears tapered like theirs and eyes slanted like theirs, and his skin was as pale as alabaster and seemed to emit a faint glow, as if with the sheen of magic.

People’s review of Eragon calls Christopher Paolini and his debut novel “precocious,” a word which brings to my mind not exceptionally bright children, but enfants terribles who have been told all their lives that they are exceptional and are, therefore, spoiled for any real accomplishments.

The trouble with Paolini is that I still find myself looking at Eldest as yet another work by an enfant terrible who, unfortunately, has been so successful with his earlier book that he hasn’t pushed himself hard enough to make his writing as good as it could be.

Paolini has a strong vocabulary, I suppose, and his invention of two languages is certainly impressive. However, many of his larger words (circumnavigated, splendiferous) smack of being ones he found in the Microsoft Word thesaurus, or words one learns for the SAT or GRE and never uses in real life. The word “plethora” is like that for me — Paolini doesn’t use that one, but he does misuse the word “prowess” in such a way as to suggest thesaurus use.

Paolini also has a tendency to drift into the world of teenage boy-targeted fantasy pseudo-porn. While Eragon focused mainly on images of Arya that would not look out of place airbrushed on the side of a minivan, Eldest contains a pair of twin ‘elf-maids’ whose naked dancing brings their shared dragon tattoo to life. The head (inked on one woman’s chest) then speaks to Eragon, blessing him with some sort of magical dragon-power. I can barely type this summary with a straight face, but clearly Paolini meant it to be extraordinarily sensual.

And to top this review off, Eldest does not pass the Bechdel test. To give Paolini a little credit, I believe that 1) his target audience is adolescent boys, not female English grad students with feminist tendencies and 2) that he has tried to introduce female characters with strength and power, but he’s just not terribly good at it yet.

Arya, despite her porn-star looks, is Eragon’s mental and physical superior for much of the first two books, and she remains his emotional superior. Nasuada rules a powerful group of people and refuses to act as a puppet of the governing council. Saphira, though a dragon, is arguably the best female character in the series, given interests and needs apart from Eragon’s.

But all of these women (with the possible exception of Saphira) are defined only by their relationship to Eragon. Arya has an interesting backstory — Paolini tells us this in the narrative — but once she rejects Eragon’s advances, she and her story are dropped abruptly. Nasuada relies heavily on Eragon to keep her nation protected and under control, and it’s suggested that Eragon could do her job better. In fact, he’s named as her successor near the end of Eldest, and I suspect that in the next book, Eragon will take over her job and another female character will fall by the wayside.

The women of Carvahall are barely worth mentioning, mostly serving as plot devices. One scene where a woman has to choose between her fiance and her father had the potential to be truly powerful and emotional. Instead, it ends  with both of the men commanding the woman to “come” as if she were a dog and watching her squirm until she finally breaks down and tearfully makes her way to her fiance’s side. Ridiculous, disgusting, and offensive.

What else to say about Eldest? I have a few quibbles with Paolini, namely his “Barges? We don’t need no stinking barges!” line. While I can see how he thought it was amusing, it’s so awful that when I read it, I groaned and said, “Come ON,” really loud in a public place. With this one line, he’s reached into his story and yanked the reader out of the fictional context he’s carefully created (though that creation owes much more to Lord of the Rings than the author admits).

That said, I will read Brisingr, and probably the fourth book when it comes out. Paolini has gotten criticism regarding his sloppy, overwrought prose (take a look at this) and while I suppose it’s too much to hope for that Saphira will turn on Eragon, kill him, and free Alagaesia from tyranny all by herself, maybe this criticism will help push him from enfant terrible to a writer worth watching.

What an amazing book- I can believe the author was only fifteen when he started writing it!

Personally, I love dragon books, such as Cornelia Funke’s Dragon Rider, so I really enjoyed Eragon, and I’m wating for the library to get The next book in.

Nem, nem a film hanem a könyv, amiből az a szédületesen bugyuta és gyenge film készült. Persze felmerül a kérdés, hogy egyáltalán, hogy jutott eszembe egy olyan könyvet elolvasni, mely annyira kiábrándítóan gyenge volt és amit csak úgy lehet magasztalni, hogy a sárkányos filmek közül a legtöbb bevételt hozta. L.O.L. Az az igazság, hogy a Sith-ek bosszúja után olvastam még egy kisebb Star Wars regényt, de az annyira nem fogott meg, így kellett valami más komolytalan könyv. Úgy értem valami könnyed fantasy és akkor valahogy beugrott az Eragon, melynek nem is ez a rendes címe ezért nehéz volt megtalálni, de azért sikerült. Nosza feldobtam a mobilomra és pár hét alatt, szünetekben, vonaton, wc-n, szép lassan el is olvastam.

Természetesen az első dolog ami igaz erre is, mint minden más vászonra vitt könyvre, hogy sokkal jobb mint a film. Elsősorban azért 4-500 oldalon sokkal több hely van, mint 90 percben. Másrészt azért, mert a film túlságosan is leegyszerűsítette és lebutította a karaktereket. Brom pl. soha nem mondta Eragonnak, hogy “1 rész bátor, 3 rész bolond”. A könyvben mind Eragon, mind Saphira (akinek nem születésétől fogva van meg a neve és nem egy villám alatt nő fel) fejlődése és növekedése részletesen le van írva és végig zajlik a köteteken át. Így egy hosszú, de szórakoztató és egy kicsit talán izgalmas, fantasy világot bemutató könyv lett az Eragon.

Ennek ellenére annak is igaza van aki klisésnek tartja és egy Gyűrűk Urába iktatott Csillagok Háborújának nevezi. Igaza van, de nagy kár, hogy faszság amit mond, ugyanis az ilyen típusú történetek gyökerei sokkal mélyebbre vezetnek vissza. Anno egy blogon a Nanoha Strikers című animével kapcsolatban olvastam róla, hogy Carl Jung egyik tanítványa Joseph Campbell írt a Hős útjáról, vagyis arról, hogy a klasszikus hőstörténetek, hogy épülnek fel és, hogy ez bizonyos módon felépített történet hogyan válik a közönség számára kedvelhetővé. Valószínűleg amúgy nem ez volt a lényeg, de lusta voltam rendesen utána olvasni. Számomra a lényeg, hogy azért hasonlít ennyire az Eragon is, meg csomó minden más a Csillagok háborújára és társaira, mert mindegyik úgy van megírva, ahogy, vagyis követik a Hős Útjának szerkezeti felépítését.

Ha ezen túlteszi magát az ember, márpedig a könyv nem olyan bugyuta mint a film, ezért hamar túl lehet, akkor utána nagyon élvezetes olvasmány. Legalább olyan magával ragadó a világa mint a Gyűrűk Urának. Ezért minden fantasy rajongónak ajánlom. (A könyvet amúgy Inherintence I – Eragon címen keressétek, magyarul nem olvastam, de úgy láttam megjelent nálunk is)

Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one. Its flawless surface was dark blue, except for thin veins of white that spiderwebbed across it. The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk.

Have you ever had a dream about a book you’re reading? This happens to me every once in a while, and it’s surprisingly unsettling. Everything seems familiar and recognizable from the book, but it’s either not the way I pictured it when I was reading, the characters act in unfamiliar ways, or there’s just something…off.

That’s the way I felt when reading Eragon: as if I was dreaming I was reading another book. Eragon is a story about a fifteen-year-old boy who discovers a dragon egg in the woods near his home and is consequently flung into a world full of swords, sorcery, dragons and quests. On the way he meets an ancient storyteller, an elfin princess, another young man with a mysterious past and dwarves who have built an underground city. He also learns how to fight with a magic sword, control his own brand of magic and, oh yeah, communicate telepathically with a dragon.

It was like stumbling into The Hobbit via His Dark Materials and Tamora Pierce, with a little of the Farseer Trilogy thrown in for good measure. Oddly familiar and yet not, I found the whole experience a little strange.

Granted, Christopher Paolini was only fifteen when he began this novel, and seventeen when it was released by his parents’ publishing company. He said in an interview with The Observer that he intentionally went for archetypal fantasy situations and admits that Tolkien has had an effect on his writing. That’s all well and good, and in fact standard for many writers. Intertextuality, as Philip Pullman will tell you, is nothing new.

Overall, Eragon is good. It’s probably the best fantasy novel ever written by a 17-year-old, and Paolini is clearly a prodigy for having come up with this whole fantasy world, history and even language. But I can’t help feeling that it’s still a little immature. The setting was beautiful, but the plot needed a bit of tightening and I felt the characters could use some depth — especially Arya the elf.

Arya is such a non-character that she is not even required to be conscious for much of the book, though that doesn’t stop Eragon from falling in love with her (of course). When she is conscious, she is one-dimensional, all tight leather, cat-like eyes and flowing hair, riding on the back of a dragon and wielding a ‘nimbus of green magic.’ She comes off as nothing more than a superhuman (super-elfin?) Arwen-Lara Croft hybrid, straight from every 15-year-old boy’s World of Warcraft-inspired wet dreams. I predict that every woman who reads Eragon will hate Arya, and every boy will love her.

I have to agree with Liz Rosenberg’s review in the New York Times: This work is flawed, but Paolini has the makings of a genius. Despite the aforementioned issues, this novel has its moments of brilliance, especially in descriptions of scenery and in Saphira’s character development (oddly, the dragon reads more realistically than the human characters). Since Paolini has promised that even the first draft of Eldest was better than the last draft of Eragon, I think I’ll give the rest of this series another chance, and hope that Paolini’s style has matured a little between installments.

By Christopher Paolini

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008

Genres: Fantasy, adventure

Series: Inheritance; 3

ISBN: 9780375826726

Intended audience: Young adult, adult

Number of pages: 763

Setting: Alagaësia

Time period: [medieval]

Plot summary: Following a brief synopsis of Eragon and  Eldest, Brisingr picks up where Eldest left off.   Eragon and Saphira first must fulfill their promise to Roran to help him save Katrina.  Then it’s back to fulfilling obligations to the Varden and trying to defeat the evil empire.  However, Eragon and Saphira also must find the time to meet with their mentors, or they have no hope of defeating Galbatorix.  Eragon is also in need of a Rider’s Sword since Murtagh claimed Zar’roc on the Burning Plains.

Appeal factors:

Pacing: Most of the story is very fast paced, however, there are some slower moving episodes interspersed throughout the book.

Characterization: As in Eldest, most of the story is told in third person from Eragon’s perspective; other character perspectives include Saphira’s, Nasuada’s, and Roran’s.  Readers continue to learn more about the primary characters in this story.

Frame: The frame is set early on in the story when Eragon punishes a person for his crimes.  Eragon and his allies continuously strive to fight evil without succumbing to it.

Story line: The third installment of an exciting coming of age story about friendship, loyalty, trust, and self-discovery in the magical and war-torn realm of Alagaësia.

Subject headings:

From PCPL:

Dragons — Juvenile fiction.

Magic — Juvenile fiction.

And buried in the MARC display:

650  1 Fantasy.

650  1 Dragons|vFiction.

650  1 Magic|vFiction.

650  1 Youth’s writings.

From NoveList:

Dragons

Boys and dragons

Battles

Teenage boys

Allegiance

Loyalty

Duty

Responsibility

Elves

Good and evil

Fantasy fiction

Teenagers’ writing

Similar authors:

From NoveList’s featured article “Here be Dragons” by Tara Bannon:

Dragon flight by Anne McCaffrey – first in the Dragonriders of Pern series

Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik – first in the Temeraire series

Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey

Personal notes: Lots of valid criticism of this story can be found in the reviews on Amazon.  While I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first two, I still enjoyed it.  Yes, it is violent, but I’m not sure I would consider it more violent than the first two – there were some gruesome scenes in the first book.  Readers do have to deal with more killing in this book (as well as idiot captains and subversive dwarves) – the rebel movement is now a full fledged war.  Some of the pacing did feel off to me – (like when Eragon has to go deal with dwarf politics after the action packed beginning) – but the story still held my interest.  I think this book may have had a rough start from the get go with readers in that the third book was originally supposed to be the last.  Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way and I think some readers may feel let down because they feel that the story is too long.  I’m going to withhold judgment on the length of the story until after the final installment….  And it doesn’t bother me that we haven’t seen Galbatorix yet.  Lots of evil villains don’t show their faces until the final scenes (if then…  Sauron never showed his face in The Lord of the Rings…)

Other (themes, diversity): Diversity – female warrior, female leader

“Inspiration is all around you.”

 When your ink well is running dry, look around you, you will find inspiration in the oddest of places.  Best selling authors are aware of this and practice it all the time.  Some observe and listen for ideas, others have dreams, others write about what they know; some use ideas that are already out, but modify them into a different story.  Caution should be exercised with this last one, as you have to be careful with copyrights – a lawyer should be handling these details – this applies in the case of modifying a story that has already been written, for example “A Lion Among Men” by Gregory Maguire, which is a different view of The Wizard of Oz. 

Sara Grwen saw a picture of a vintage circus, and that instance, she knew she would write a story about that (Water for Elephants), even when she had started a complete different story.  Christopher Paolini wrote about what he always wanted to read about, but there was just not enough of it around (Besinger).  Jody Picoult says that ideas come from all over the place.  For her, usually about an issue that she doesn’t have the answer to.

So, however you want to connect with your muse, inspiration is all around you, just be aware, or alert to your muse’s call.

Kate Langenburg/A&E Groove

Today I am going to post a blog about one of my guilty pleasures. So don’t judge me, okay?

The third book in the Inheritance Cycle is the best yet! Photo from alagaesia.com.

I have read the first two books in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I am just about to finish the third. You may know each individual books by their true names: Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr.

If you’re thinking of the movie Eragon right now, STOP IT. It was horrible and didn’t live up to the book at all. Seriously guys, read the book. You’ll be hooked on this stuff. It’s technically a children’s literature adventure series, but, like Harry Potter, many adults are now reading it.

Paolini weaves a web of a distant land called Alagaesia, in which dwarves, elves, and humans all live together in sometimes not-so-perfect harmony. Of course, all this comes after the main character, Eragon, finds a dragon egg in the middle of the forest. Little does he know, it holds his destiny. 

So now, three books later, I’m still just as engrossed as I was in the first novel. There are intense battle scenes, colorful characters, and a fantasy world that has sucked me in. Sometimes I even daydream of riding on a dragon…

But here is my beef. The fourth and final book in the series does not have a release date. It doesn’t even have a title or book cover yet. So what I’m thinking is that it won’t come out until some time next year when all the information I’ve read has been lost inside my jumbled brain.

Come on Chris, chop chop! I need to know what happens at the end of the series! The only consolation is that he usually provides you with a little synopsis at the beginning of each novel to let you know what already happened in previous books. Looks like I’m going to have to rely on that!

The most interesting that about the series is that Paolini might well be a genius. He finished writing the first book, Eragon, when he was only fifteen years old. So young for a 760 page book. Kudos, Chris.

You can find out information about the series, the author, and what is to come at Alagaesia.com. But keep in mind that they’re not giving away too much about the series. Brisingr!

In what is quickly turning into a theme this week, I have decided to devote this week to those films that were to be foundations for future franchises, but fell short somewhere along the line and ended up either stalling or stopping the series entirely from being made. I’m unofficially calling it Failed Franchises Week! I would make it official, but the last time I made a Week specifically for a genre and asked people to vote, my readership dropped so fast I thought I had actually died and my blog was the first person to know. So TECHNICALLY this is just another week, so don’t get all fickle on me, you lovely, lovely people, but I will be trying to dig up a couple of these throughout the week. Today we have a movie that almost went the distance, but couldn’t quite reach the station before it ran out of steam. Magical, mystical steam. Eragon came out in 2006; it had a $130 million budget, a mighty, mighty cast, and source material that, at the time, was a serious contender for J.K. Rowling’s jewel-encrusted crown made out of children’s bones. There was a massive amount of buzz around this movie, and how it would be the Next Big Thing (patent pending). Hell, even I saw this thing in theaters thinking there might be something to it. But I was also going to see a potential train-wreck, because by the time the movie had come out, there was so much negative buzz from the media and even some of the cast (Jeremy Irons admitted that the book wasn’t very well-written!) that it became the big talk of the town. I, being a man of science, decided to go out and verify its quality with impunity, and after innumerable tests in my mental laboratory, I quickly came to the realization that not only was I NOT a scientist, but Eragon was kinda bland and generic, the ultimate crime of a fantasy movie. Three years later, and not much has changed in my taste, but I have a tad more skill in expressing my displeasure than I did when I was 20, so allow me to elucidate.

As with Harry Potter’s extensive mythology, I won’t be covering all of this in my own words. I don’t feel like recanting the entire concept of Alagaesia (there’s an umlaut on that E, but it’s superfluous so I’m not using it), so I’ll just inform you that there is a young hero named Eragon who comes from humble origins, and his quest is to end the oppression of the people of Alagaesia under the hand of evil Emperor John Malkovich. With the power of a dragon named Saphira that he raised from an egg, he and his wizened old master named Jeremy Irons travel the nation from the quaint village hamlet he was born in to the great cities in search of the Varden, a group that he wishes to aid in overthrowing evil Emperor Malkovich. Some other stuff happens, including a guest spot by allegedly good R&B artist Joss Stone! And let’s not forget class-act Djimon Hounsou, who always reminds us, no matter what role he plays, to NEVER BACK DOWN!!!!!!!!!

Now, as I saw it, there were three basic problems with Eragon:

1. Too much exposition for a 100 minute long movie.

2. Not enough cool stuff happening for both an action-adventure movie and a 100 minute long movie.

3. Wasted potential with the cast and source material.

I could be cheeky, and write:

4. This movie sucks major dragon ass!

But I’m not so cheap as to go that route. It’s really a matter of setup and delivery. Eragon sets up so much stuff for not only its own movie, but for the movies that were supposed to follow. It’s like a lonely lady making food for a party; this movie made WAY too much!!! And when all the main character does is take a bite of a sandwich, drink half a Diet Coke, and jets after what seems like only a minute or two, it just seems like a huge waste to we, the filmgoers! This creates the current set of problems I have with it, in one form or another, and it could have easily been remedied with a little less CG and a little more film.

Eragon is also incredibly dull, for some reason. It has dragons, magic, and eccentric characters out the fucking wazoo, but it can’t seem to corral all of it together and cobble a decent sequence out of it. Instead, we get a lot of talking. Talking about things we don’t see, talking about things we don’t need to know. Why should I care about the poor, beleaguered Dragon Riders if I am not allowed to see them or witness their value to the story? Why should things not put up on screen in either subtext or imagery mean anything to me? But at least we can talk about them, so I guess that’s nice. If only we could’ve had a visual aid…

Oh, and Eragon also suffers from the deadly Dragonheart syndrome; instead of seeing healthy doses of dragon action, we’re tied up and forced to watch the noble dragon TALKING endlessly! Why would you EVER make such a fabulous and fantastical creature just so you could gab and expound? Not that I don’t appreciate Rachel Weisz stopping by and making an assload of money without even doing a proper voice for the dragon (not a voice that sounds like her normal voice, that is…), but Saphira ends up being a $50 million storytelling device that quickly becomes a nuisance the more she talks and the less she actually does cool dragon stuff.

I hate fantasy movie casts; this one is no different than any other. Can anybody in the acting industry do me a favor and pretend like you care about a project long enough for us to actually try immersing ourselves in the movie? It seems like the serious actors that are sucked into fantasy movies are giving up earlier and earlier now in their attempts to get over their shame and ignominy. Jeremy Irons actually gives up mid-movie here!!! He must have been so disgusted with himself that he had to get away ASAP, because Irons phones it in so much here that I was almost certain that by the end all I would see on-screen of him would be a cardboard cutout of him in a weary, heroic pose with his lines stripped from Die Hard With A Vengeance and superimposed onto a motionless mouth. Emperor Malkovich also disappoints, but that’s hardly a surprise in 2009 when Malkovich is so famous that he only REALLY comes to work for good directors like the Coens. First-time director Stefen Fangmeier didn’t have a chance getting this guy to act, so he had to relegate the main bad guy to only about three minutes of actual screen time, if that.

And what about first-time actor Ed Speleers as the main character, Eragon? Well, honestly, he didn’t do bad. I appreciated his charisma and his dedication to a script that was beyond saving. His character was, fittingly, the one ray of hope for a weakened, debilitated movie about a young man who was the one ray of hope for a weakened, debilitated world. Life imitating art, no?

Eragon will not have its desired sequel, most likely. Too little, too late. The third book in the series really didn’t meet expectations, the stars have all moved onto other projects, and it doesn’t seem like the interest is even there for the fans. It’s a grim outlook, to say the least. But be comforted in knowing that all the stars who appeared in this film were paid very well for all the grueling hard work they did as actors on this set. It helps me sleep better at night knowing that Alagaesia was populated with actors who weren’t just out to make a quick buck, but ones who really cared about the implications of Christopher Paolini’s meaningful literary gem about the fight between good and evil that exists within all of us. And dragons. *snicker* But I digress. This franchise is toast, and to send it off, I give it a firm but fair 3 1/2 cool off-screen events out of 10.

Tomorrow we continue with our failed franchises as we check out The Golden Compass!

There is apparently to be a fourth book to this once trilogy. The story is set in Alagaësia, where Eragon finds and nurtures a dragon’s egg and soon becomes one of the almost-extinct Dragon Riders, who once governed the lands.

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I. Eragon
II. Eldest
III. Brisingr

O nouă serie fantasy extraordinară se va lansa în august la Corint Junior – Fablehaven de Brandon Mull. Prima carte, numită tot FABLEHAVEN, este prima dintr-o serie de cinci, ce va fi în curând şi ecranizată.. Pentru mai multe detalii, 10 capitole din prima carte, şi o idee despre cum arată refugiul Fablehaven, intraţi pe site-ul oficial, Fablehaven.com.
Copertele şi ilustraţiile din interior aparţin talentatului Brandon Dorman, ilustratorul seriei Aventurile lui Miercuri de Jon Berkeley.

Secole întregi, creaturi mitice de toate felurile au fost adunate într-un refugiu ascuns, numit Fablehaven, pentru a preveni dispariţia lor. Sanctuarul supravieţuieşte şi astăzi ca una dintre ultimele fortăreţe de magie adevărată. Încântător? Absolut. Pasionant? Bineînţeles. Lipsit de pericol? Ei bine, de fapt, e total opusul.
Kendra şi fratele ei, Seth, nu au nicio idee că bunicul lor este actualul îngrijitor al refugiului Fablehaven. Înăuntrul pădurii magice, reguli vechi păstrează o anumită ordine printre troli lacomi, satiri poznaşi, vrăjitoare complotiste, drăcuşori ranchiunoşi şi zâne geloase. Însă când regulile sunt încălcate – Seth este un pic prea curios şi nepăsător pentru propria-i viaţă – forţe puternice ale întunericului se dezlănţuie, iar Kendra şi fratele ei se confruntă cu cea mai mare provocare din viaţa lor. Ca să salveze familia, fortăreaţa Fablehaven şi probabil lumea, Kendra şi Seth trebuie să găsească curajul de a face lucrurile de care se tem cel mai mult.

“Una dintre cele mai frumoase cărţi fantasy citite!” Christopher Paolini, autorul cărţii ERAGON

Jetzt auf www.SchoneDeinSparschwein.de zu finden: Eragon!

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Year of Publication: 1968

Book 3 of the Inheritance Cycle

OATHS SWORN . . . loyalties tested . . . forces collide.

Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran: to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength – as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices – choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once-simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

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Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Year of Publication: 2005

Book 2 of the Inheritance Cycle

Darkness falls…despair abounds…evil reigns…
Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesmera, land of the elves, for further training in the skills of the Dragon Rider: magic and swordsmanship. Soon he is on the journey of a lifetime, his eyes open to awe-inspring new places and people, his days filled with fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and nothing is what it seems. Before long, Eragon doesn’t know whom he can trust.
Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle-one that might put Eragon in even graver danger.
Will the king’s dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life. .

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Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Year of Publication: 2003

Book 1 of the Inheritance Cycle

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Title:      Brisingr

Author:      Christopher Paolini

Grade Level :    9-10,11-12,Adult

Genre(s) – Action,Fantasy,Science-Fiction

Number of Stars:       Five Stars

Opinion:               OATHS SWORN . . . loyalties tested . . . forces collide.

Following the colossal battle against the Empire’s warriors on the Burning Plains, Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have narrowly escaped with their lives. Still there is more at hand for the Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by a tangle of promises he may not be able to keep.

First is Eragon’s oath to his cousin Roran: to help rescue Roran’s beloved, Katrina, from King Galbatorix’s clutches. But Eragon owes his loyalty to others, too. The Varden are in desperate need of his talents and strength – as are the elves and dwarves. When unrest claims the rebels and danger strikes from every corner, Eragon must make choices – choices that take him across the Empire and beyond, choices that may lead to unimagined sacrifice.

Eragon is the greatest hope to rid the land of tyranny. Can this once-simple farm boy unite the rebel forces and defeat the king?

I thought this was a great,awesome,outstanding read, third book in a series of four. Fantastic third installment of the inheritance series, the best book in the series so far. It was very well written, everything was described thoroughly and the different languages were greatly constructed and delivered fully. There was absolutely nothing I didn’t like about this book, everything was perfect in it’s own way. I would recommend this book and the rest of the series to all fantasy and dragon lovers alike. It was an intense,magical,action,fantasy, thrill-ride from beginning to end.

Name:      Mitchell

What I’m referring to in the name of this post is not actually this post but another I just found on eHarlequin. Author Michelle Styles writes about POV in a really great way, I think, in her blog post Switching Point of View v Head Hopping.

I went in search of a good article about this because I needed a kind of kick in the pants that says, “Go on, try it. It could work. It’s ok to break the rules.” Michelle gave me just the right way of thinking about it. Although switching point of view isn’t, shall we say, encouraged, especially with middle-grade books, if the writing isn’t confusing (i.e. the reader always knows whose head he’s in), then switching POV is fine as long as it works for the story. Besides, as Michelle points out, Terry Prachett does it brilliantly, and he’s one of my favorite authors.

I love this last part of Michelle’s post:

There is NO hard and fast rule. The only rule is the story. If the story flows and the tension is high, you can shift as the story dictates. If the tension is low, not even slavish devotion to one point of view will save it.

Techniques are there to be mastered, rather than followed blindly.

(But the whole post is great, so click here and read it.)

Once again, story is king!

I wrote about switching POV a couple days ago and got some fabulous, encouraging comments about it. What I really need to do next is start typing and try it, but I was kinda busy today. It was always on my mind, though, and I decided to do a little research and flip through the books on my shelves and remind myself of how they handled their POVs.

I just finished the fourth book in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series (fantastic, if you haven’t tried them), but they’re all first person, and I’m not feeling that style for me as a writer. I’m currently reading the second book in Suzanne Collins’ Underland Chronicles (also fantastic), and that’s solely in the third-person protagonist’s POV, like my first book. Both of these styles work really well to bring the reader totally into the character’s world.

A book I read a while ago, Peter Pan in Scarlett, is in omniscient narrative, and although the book is very entertaining and has some delightful throwbacks to the original classic, I must admit it was a bit of a struggle for me in the first half. I never really felt like I was in the head of Peter, Wendy or any of the characters. I really was just kind of floating above and didn’t feel as though I was in the story, part of the story.

In the Eragon books, Christopher Paolini deftly switches pov every chapter or so (especially in the third book), but he does something interesting: His characters are given a sort of heirarchy, with Eragon at the top. Whenever Eragon is in a scene, it’s in his POV and we see the other characters through his eyes. But when there’s a scene with one of the lesser characters when Eragon isn’t around, Paolini chooses which character has the most to gain (storywise) from the scene and that’s whose POV it’s told in. Again, it works very well. There’s no switching within scenes, and each scene begins with some action, thought, something from the character whose POV we’re seeing through, so no confusion.

Then I spied the last Harry Potter book and something told me to go back and read the opening of the first book, Sorcerer’s Stone. Wow! I hadn’t remembered (and when I read this book I wasn’t dissecting it like I am now), but J.K. Rowling begins the initial scene in Mr. Dursley’s head, then when he goes to sleep, the POV switches to McGonagall as the cat, then to Dumbledore, and finally baby Harry. There are some narratory sentences (“How very wrong he was”), but it doesn’t read like omniscient narrative. It reads like third person switching from head to head, but it’s written so well that as a reader, you’re never confused about who you’re following, who’s head you’re in. And ultimately, it tells the story very well, which is exactly what Michelle was talking about in her excellent post on POV.

Ok, now I know what you’re thinking: Stop analyzing it and go write it! And you’re right. I will. But first, I must get some sleep. I’ll set the alarm for early, even on a Saturday — shudder.

How are you guys coming along?

Write On!

P.S. No word count from me today because all I managed to have time for was 11 words, but lots of research. I’ll post a word count tomorrow.