(Cover picture courtesy of Fairfieldbooks on Kids.)

It began with Eragon…

It ends with Inheritance.

Not so very long ago, Eragon—Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider—was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest.  Now, the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.

Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss.  And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix.  When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him.  And if they cannot, no one can.  There will be no second chance.

The Rider and his dragon have come farther than anyone dared to imagine.  But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia?  And if so, at what cost?

This is the spellbinding conclusion to Christopher Paolini’s worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle.

After three long years of eager anticipation, I finally got my hands on the last book of the Inheritance Cycle.  Boy, was I disappointed.  I don’t even know where to start, but I think I should start with the worst part of it: the characters.

The characters in this novel have gone way into left field, especially minor characters like King Orrin and Angela.  Orrin, who was always supportive of the Varden suddenly becomes a mean, irrational and selfish drunk.  I understand that the pressures of war may have made him snap, but Christopher Paolini never showed this huge transition from eccentric to drunk.  We see more of Angela and she goes from somewhat dangerous and mysterious to a really mysterious, incredibly dangerous…thing.  We never find out what she really is, which makes me think Paolini is going to write a fifth book.  In addition to minor characters changing, the main characters become caricatures of their former selves.  Roran becomes a city-destroying killing machine that’s completely unrealistic (even for fantasy), Arya does a total 180 near the end of the novel and Eragon becomes a super-powerful magician and warrior to the point of ridiculousness.

This book is over 800 pages long, yet it probably could have been condensed to 500 pages.  Christopher Paolini’s descriptions become excruciatingly long, but suddenly trail off with about 100 pages left.  The last hundred pages are so poorly written I think that after 13 years of writing the same series, he just wanted to get it over with.  Unfortunately, the result is a lot of disappointed fans.

I give this book 0.5/5 stars.

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