Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

(Cover picture courtesy of Children’s Books.)

Oaths sworn…

Loyalties tested…

Forces collide.

It’s been only months since Eragon first uttered “brisingr,” an ancient language term for fire.  Since then, he’s not only learned to create magic with words—he’s been challenged to his very core.  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 adventure 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 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 will 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?

Okay, I have to admit that after I read Brisingr, I began to question Christopher Paolini’s writing abilities.  The plot is so slow it’s almost non-existent, the characters are cardboard cut-outs and not much actually happens to get the Varden closer to Galbatorix.  I honestly wish I had never read the series past Eragon.

The book starts out interestingly enough: Eragon and Roran are scouting out Helgrind to see where the Ra’zac are.  But the plot slows down immediately after they rescue Katrina and Eragon stays behind to kill the last Ra’zac and figure out what to do with Sloan (who betrayed Carvahall to the Empire).  He finds a way to help Sloan but make sure that he can never get in the way of Roran and Katrina again.

Then he spends many chapters travelling with Arya, who somehow manages to find him.  I wouldn’t mind the fact that he got to travel with his love interest except for the fact that nothing happens between them.  I won’t give anything more away, but let me say that the plot of Brisingr is basically the same as the first two books: Eragon travels, learns magic, pines for Arya, then a battle is thrown in at the end of the book to keep readers hooked.  Christopher Paolini also throws in an apology at the back of the book for getting his fans’ hopes up about Brisingr being the last book.  Then three years later, we get Inheritance, the actual ‘last book.’  But it has an open ending that leaves the potential for a fifth book open.

Despite all of his newfound power and strength, Eragon does not change much throughout Brisingr.  He still pines for Arya and acts like a love-stricken child around her.  Many characters do not change, but the few that do go completely out into left field.  Nasuada, for example, begins treating King Orrin (her benefactor) rudely and bestows a completely unjust punishment on Roran to ‘keep discipline’ among the Varden, never mind that such a punishment would kill a normal human.  A leader that relies on blind obedience and punishes initiative will end up like Pompey the Great did during the civil war with Caesar: an army near mutiny that will abandon you as soon as things start going badly.  But of course this never happens to the Varden because that would be inconvenient for Christopher Paolini.

I give this book 1/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble

My Favourite Heroines

There is no shortage of female leads in YA fiction, but strong female leads (that are not simply butt-kicking cardboard cutouts) are very rare.  They’re not nearly as rare as good female villains because there is only one female on my list of favourite villains, but they are rare nonetheless.  Here are my favourites in descending order.

1.  Lisbeth Salander from the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson.

What I love most about Lisbeth is that she truly doesn’t care what other people think of her.  She’s smart and independent, but she is also deeply flawed.  Because of all the trauma in her childhood, she has a hard time learning to trust people and it takes a very long time for her to develop any sort of relationship with Mikael Blomkvist in the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  She seems to have Asperger’s Syndrome  (or something similar) and she is not afraid to speak her mind.  But Lisbeth is not your stereotypical punk girl, however, because she feels insecure about her petite body and falls in love with Mikael, which causes her to sever ties with him throughout The Girl who Played with Fire.  She is my favourite heroine because although the book is mostly told through Mikael’s point of view, she steals every scene she is in throughout the trilogy and Stieg Larsson gave her an incredible amount of depth. Continue reading →

Emperor: The Death of Kings by Conn Iggulden

(Cover picture courtesy of Barnes and Noble.)

In a sparsely settled region of North Africa, a band of disheveled soldiers turn their eyes toward one man among them: their leader, Julius Caesar.  The soldiers are Roman legionaries.  And their quarry is a band of pirates who dared to kidnap Julius Caesar for ransom.  Now, as Caesar exacts his revenge and builds a legend far from Rome, his friend Marcus Brutus is fighting battles of another sort, rising to power in the wake of the assassination of a dictator.  Once, Brutus and Caesar were as close as brothers, devoted to the same ideals and attracted to the same forbidden woman.  Now they will be united again by a shock wave from the north, where a gladiator named Spartacus is building an army of seventy thousand slaves—to fight a cataclysmic battle against Rome itself.

In The Death of Kings, Conn Iggulden has managed to simultaneously thrill and annoy me.  He thrills me with his wonderful writing, the characters he brings to life and his fast-paced plot, yet he manages to annoy me in his usual fashion when he changes major historical events to suit his narrative.  But before I start ranting, let me list the many reasons to read this novel.

It is mostly historically accurate and Iggulden excels in bringing near-mythical figures like Caesar, Sulla, Marius, Pompey and Cato the Younger to life.  In their own time they were the leading men of Rome, but they had not achieved the legendary status they have today.  Iggulden takes that into account as he develops these characters that are not much different than you or I.  They love, lust, fight, cry, rejoice and, most importantly, have doubts about their abilities or if they are fighting for a worthy cause.  One of my favourite characters (aside from Caesar himself) is Marius because he had always been a larger than life figure in my mind before Iggulden made him more human.

The Death of Kings is definitely more fast-paced than the first book because Caesar is grown up, more involved in politics and plays an active part in many battles that were going on at the time.  There’s also an interesting subplot featuring Cornelia (his first wife) and Sulla that Iggulden uses to kill off the Dictator.  We also see more of Brutus, who is a very strong, but fatally flawed character.  These two subplots do not take away from all of the action and instead are used to bring the plot forward, which is why I love them.

But, as regular readers will know, Conn Iggulden annoys me because he sees fit to mess with history.  He kills off Sulla and Cato, both of whom died many years after the events of The Death of Kings.  In Iggulden’s novel, Sulla is poisoned when in fact he died of old age after retiring from the office of Dictator.  Cato publicly commits suicide to avoid execution just before Pompey and Caesar go to put down Spartacus’s rebellion.  Cato really did commit suicide, but it was not until after the battle of Pharsalus when Caesar finally defeated Pompey after a bitter civil war.  In my opinion, killing off Cato so early denied us a look at the dour senator who was always a thorn in Caesar’s side.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

(Cover picture courtesy of Tower Books.)

A year has passed, but not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart, the book whose characters came to life.  For the fire-eater Dustfinger, the need to return to the tale has become more desperate.  When he finds a crooked storyteller to read him back, he abandons his apprentice Farid and plunges into the pages.  Before long, Farid and Meggie are caught inside the book, too.  But the story is much changed—and threatening to end tragically.

This may just be me, but I liked Inkspell more than I liked Inkheart.  Meggie and Farid journey to the Inkworld, where the villain of the last novel, Capricorn, was originally from.  The romance between the two develops at a natural pace as they try to navigate the quasi-Medieval world that has hidden dangers lurking around every corner.  The plot is fairly fast-paced and Cornelia Funke’s character development is second only to her wonderful world-building.

Unlike a lot of fantasy writers, Cornelia Funke does not use creatures exclusively from Norse mythology.  Fire elves, White women and brownies populate the Inkworld and enchant readers who are used to the normal fantasy clichés.  Of course there are taverns, castles and farms (but what fantasy universe doesn’t have these?), but they do not seem out of place with the rest of the world because it is very well developed.

Cornelia Funke is really an excellent writer and Anthea Bell, who translated it from the original German, certainly deserves a lot of credit.  Translating a book and still keeping the author’s original subtleties is incredibly hard to do.  Most translations make the English version a choppy, poorly written book, yet the writing is still very consistent throughout the novel.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble

Upcoming Reviews 11/02/12

Here are some reviews (and articles!) you can expect to be up this week.

Sunday: Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

Monday: Emperor: The Death of Kings by Conn Iggulden (Plus another article in the “My Favourite…” series)

Tuesday: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Wednesday: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Thursday: A surprise because it’s my 42nd book review  (any fellow geeks out there?)

Friday: Emperor: The Field of Swords by Conn Iggulden

Saturday: City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

I know, there’s another two Conn Iggulden reviews this week.  I’m re-reading the Emperor series and I need to review the books while they’re fresh in my mind because they have very complicated plots at times.  Of course, for my Monday special I’m continuing the “My Favourite…” series.  Last Monday, I covered my favourite villains, so this week I will be covering some good characters.  I also have another article covering some upcoming YA books I’m anxiously awaiting, but I’m not sure when I’ll have that up.  But I guarantee that it will be up some time this week.