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 Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:50 am
I'm finding this as well, it is very cookie cutter but I find the story isn't what it was hyped up to be. I know I'm only a third of the way into the book with Eldest still to read but as far as I'm concerned his writing doesn't need improvement it's his story. I'm 20, not as "seasoned" as you Azure, but I'm ultimately a kid a heart.
They way he writes isn't the problem I actually quite enjoy how he pieces his chapters together because not all of them are 10-12 pages in length, some are merely 2-4. I'm finding the actual story hard to swallow, call me cliche but everything in his sequences has been done before. Don't get me wrong, the archetype of, IGNORANCE, PROPHECY, DENIAL, REVENGE, HAPPY ENDING is all well and good but its the characters and the setting that don't strike me as anything I want to read about.
So far his world is a meager amount of small villages and one or two urban towns. I'm sure everyone wonders why a powerful lord who rides a dragon would want to rule over a place like that. I'm not trying to harp on realism within a fantasy setting, but even in a cookie cutter story characters should at least be fully cooked. Eragon is right now in a very grey area with me, Brom we still no next to nothing about. The only thing I'm actually thinking about is the slight romance between the butcher's daughter and the now orphaned step-brother. But if I wanted to harp on realism, I think even someone who put even a little critical thought into the story could see that Galbatorix is over 100 years old, he commands a huge, probably unsupportable army, and rides arguably the biggest, strongest dragon in the land. Eragon, is 15, he's accompanied by a old story-teller who if you watched the movie, no in the first few minutes that he is who Eragon is now. Laying on top of that Eragon has no experience, he's badly wounded from his first flight, and he admits to not knowing how to use a sword. It makes me wonder why old Gally doesn't fly out, rend Eragon limb from limb and go back to ruling a country full of nothing.
Paolini isn't bringing anything to the table that hasn't been brought a hundred times before. Understandably he meant to write the book(s) for his then audience and good for him. But over time he should've went back and rethought some things to make it more. Granted it isn't the worst book I've ever read, it's tolerable, but I dunno, maybe I'm too old to be reading books meant for a generation that hasn't experienced as much as I have. I'm done...
For now ^_^
the Demon
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Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 5:03 pm
As work eats my reading time, I have to admit I'm not 100% through Eragon... so I may agree with this wholeheartedly, Demon, on the story once I get the payoff (or lack thereof)
I'll let you know in a few days. smile
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:24 pm
Amelia Atwater Rhodes books are really good. I don't really care if an auther is young or not, nor am I terribly impressed by it. There are plenty of books by young authors that I think are absolutely awful!
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Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 3:15 pm
I have to say, before I encountered this thread I honestly did not know that Paolini was such a young writer. I read Eragon sometime either mid or early 2006, I think, and promptly forgot about it. It did not make any sort of impression on me. It was so...it got my attention enough for me to plough through the book, but that's all. When I finished reading it I didn't want to jump out the door and tell the first person I saw to read it.
I'm a very visual person and when reading I usually have it playing out in my head in scenes or moments in time. With all of the books I've read I have some image or scene in my mind linked to it from the text, some more vague than others. But when I think back on Eragon, nothing pops to mind at all.
Of course now that I know he is so young, it makes a bit more sense. As for the 'young writers' in general, it's not something that matters to me personally. Youth, however, does add a different flavour to the story because when you're young you do have a different mindset and way of seeing the world. Not necessarily a bad thing in my opinion and I know people who are incredibly talented writers, but in some cases, I think the praise may be more due to the age of the author as opposed the real value of the writing. Although I do admit the age and experience of the author should be accounted.
As a side note, I think I will try to reread Eragon and see if the lack of impressions was a side effect of the times. blaugh
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:21 pm
I finally saw Eragon the movie, and...I liked it mrgreen A lot. I thought the graphics were great, the warmth between the main character and his family and various people was great and just very great XD There was actually some life to the movie.
The main guy, his brother (who my dad kept calling Moron XD), the knight guy and the black haired guy were CUUUUUUUUUUUTE!!!!!!! blaugh blaugh blaugh heart heart heart
heart heart heart heart
<<
>>
...ahem....
BUT!
The dark king couldn't act and neither could the Shadow guy. There were weird little things that would happen...like when Eragon's house is burning and SUDDENLY it's raining. It was sunny 5 seconds ago! And then 10 seconds later it was sunny again x.x Another thing was when the princess was sick and then she miraculously reappeared again. There were a few little things like that I noticed, but other than those I really enjoyed the movie. To me the movie was fairly original, but that might be because I haven't read many fantasy books (or any >>)
So, yeah...Glory liked muy mucho ^^
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:19 am
The movie could have been better though.
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:29 pm
The book could've been better too...
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:04 pm
*nods to all three*
I agree with your statements equally. (Glory, you hit the nail on the head. Wah-ow-za)
*eyes glaze over, drools steadily*
Ed Speleers.... *mimics Homer-donut noise*
-LD
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:42 pm
Yay! I did something good ^.^ *takes her cookie and pat on the head*
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:56 am
I dunno, Paolini was in college or something when he was fifteen, so he was obviously smart...but then again I love his books anyway xD
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 6:19 am
I find young writers have similar problems to people who write fantasy badly. There's a subtle balance between comedy, drama, action, magic, and reality that very few people get. For instance, I could never stand Mercedes Lackey because her books read like glorified fanfiction to me, where she had token characters like a homosexual couple, and it felt that Lackey had never had a gay friend in her life. There are also too many fantasy writers to mention who love to expound on details, talk in high fashion, and exalt elves; this is great but gets insanely boring after the third page on the greatest history of the greatest elvish bread there ever was.
On the flip side, I have read similar plots to what the above people write wherein even the token characters act realistically. Even if you do not know a character's complete past you can imagine what it might be and how they might have acted. I have read books where high speech sounds downright normal since the reactions are plasuible. Things don't seem melodramatic because they aren't forced. Drama is countered with a few instances of comedy that don't seem out of the blue.
I think the issue with some young writers and some old writers is that they get stuck in the idea of a genre and don't bother to flesh it out and make these characters real people. They forget to include mannerisms, or they tell instead of show the emtotions the characters feel in given situations. The bones of Eragon are great, but there's just not enough life in some of these characters or the plot to entice me to read or remembers, so they are soon forgotten.
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:23 am
Pirate__Kalo I dunno, Paolini was in college or something when he was fifteen, so he was obviously smart...but then again I love his books anyway xD Paolini was home schooled, that's why. And the college was more of an informal college of the arts which taught its students more to be creative and build on that creativity than actual school work (I love documentaries). I don't know any home schooled person that wasn't in college by the time they were 16, which makes you wonder why people are still sending their kids to school...? I agree largely with Meljyou, that young writers have an idea of a genre or a type of story with certain characters and more or less get taken away with the idea of it instead of telling an actual story. Granted, there isn't anything wrong with a good old fashioned campfire story, mind you, it'd be nice if the writer was able to tell it within the story instead of as the story. I don't personally mind if a writer exaserbates a certain person or species, but I've only ever seen it work when that certain person or species has a small part in the book, that way you know the write has some self-control and are more or less using that ultimate race as a counter balance or driving force. Anywho, I am off! the Lion
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Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 2:30 pm
I personally am not a big fan of Atwater-Rhodes or Paolini, but there are a few teen authors who I think deserved to be published -- Rhiannon Lassiter, who began the Hex trilogy when she was 17, and Helen Oyeyemi sold her first novel when she was 19 -- I haven't read her book but it sounds AMAZING.
I wrote two novels between the ages of 13 and 16 (60k and 80k words respectively -- the first Harry Potter book was about 90k words, to give you an idea of scale) so the mere act of writing a novel as a teenager doesn't impress me. If I had revised them -- I chose to leave them at first drafts because I felt the world-building was too derivative and wanted to create something more unique -- I'm betting they would have been at a quality level similar to that of AAR or Paolini.
Most of the teen authors I know of had some sort of "insider" connection going on. One of Atwater-Rhodes' high school teachers was a literary agent. Paolini's parents published him, then toured the country until his book fell into the right hands and he wound up with Knopf. Flavia Bujor had a family friend who worked at a publisher's, I believe. Rhiannon Lassiter's mother was a writer, so she had contacts that way. Mary Shelley was part of literary circles. SE Hinton and Helen Oyeyemi are the only two exceptions I'm aware of.
Personally, I want people to read my work and go "that's good" not just "that's good for a teenager". I think getting published in your teens is more of a curse than a blessing -- there's stigma, there's pressure, and no opportunity to go off and have your growing pains and embarrassing moments in private.
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Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 6:28 pm
I think I agree with you. While I think it's great that Amelia was able to start writing so young and a lot of people do like her books, I don't think that her books should be judged purely on the fact that she began publishing when she was thirteen. In fact, I don't think her first few books were all that great, so it probably would have been better had she waited a while to write them. But, there are some teen authors who are very good writers and probably did deserve to be published (Like S.E. Hinton. Actually, I think her better books were the ones she wrote as a teenager.), but their publicity shouldn't come merely from the fact that they were so young.
As Adversative pointed out, though, a lot of the young writers like Amelia and Paolini did have very good connections. I know a lot of teenagers who are just amazing writers, but who just haven't been given much of an oppurtunity to be published. But, I suppose that just goes to show how lopsided the world can be.
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Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 2:29 pm
I have to agree with you. Sure, I liked the Eragon books and everything, but they weren't written all that well and it wasn't deserving of the amount of praise that it received.
I think this is often the case of young writers. People like to make a big deal about it because the person is young and got a book published, but it's not that big of a deal. People just think it is for some reason. confused
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