Christopher Paollini's Eragon. (merged)

Hey about my last post dont worry too much about that thing that i said about what I called this thread. I discovered (by looking at the start of this thread) that it was merged with another thread, which was a thing I did not know could be done.

Oh and NR your younger then me. Your only 14 not 15.

Yes, yes, I know that, but it's close enough to 15. We are both book writers ourselves, and you should know how difficult it is to stay away from your influences. The easiest way to do this is write a story with a different genre.

But about Paolini. I don't think he was all that greatly influenced by LOTR itself- just some of the concepts. For instance, he made it so elves and dwarrows had a disagreement about a possession, something Tolkien did. However, Tolkien also showed that the two kinds could get along, which was what Paolini also did.

Note my use of the word dwarrows- a lasting influence brought on by Tolkien.

I've unintentionally plagurized before. Often I plagurize before I've read the book I rip off because some ideas in fantasy are just too cool not to be thought of simultaneously, have a lot of cool variations, and are spread thin enough that you pick them up without even knowing it.

Por ejemplo: In one of my "lesser works," The Wizard of Silbay, I introduced a form of communication where Wizards talk to each other through a device I'd thought up by combining modern instant messaging and Myst linking books, so I already had admited some "influence," but heck, you can't rip off a computer game. . . So, you write something in the book, you writing disappears, writing from the person with the other books appears.

A couple of months after I invented this device, but while I was still writing the same book, I finally got around to picking up the second Harry Potter book (I'm not really a fan of these, but I was still babysitting occasionally at the time so every so often I'd get a copy shoved at me by an enthusiastic pre-teen). I thought, "Oh dang, this is pretty similar. . .but wait, the diary is actually alive and my book is just a link between two persons. That's OK."

Still, when I let a creative writing class read the first chapter (I only used the device in the first chapter) of the novel and waited to see if they though I'd ripped off Rowling or Cyan (whoever does Myst.). Instead, one lady in the class asked if I'd borrowed it off a fantasy book I'd never read and scarcely heard of (I want to say it was Sword of S????, which I think is Terry Goodkind, but I can't remember for sure.).

A lot of fantasy devices are similar. How many versions of mysterious, silent characters in dark cloaks who don't really like the sun are there? I know I've used it, because it is just so much scarier to be chased by some presence that could be anything or nothing at all than some monster with three eyes and six horns or a head of a skull or whatever you want to paint in. That's where we get Nazgul and RaZac (sp?) and those shade thingies from Robert Jordan (were they shades or mages or what?). In fact, these things are always less scary once they've been "de-cloaked."

I read this book and wasn't terribly impressed. Here's my review if anyone is interested: http://www.arwz.com/zinereviewVIO27.html

Ahh NR I'm closer to 15 then you are.

Yes plagerism is very had to avoide and even harder when your writing a book like one of Tolkien's.
Anyone know any good authers other then Tolkien and Eoin Colfer that there are books i should read?

C.S. Lewis. I actually haven't read his Out of the Silent Planet series but I think I (or one of my family members) have that lodged away somewhere. Hmmm, I should pick that up... His Chronicles of Narnia series I still really enjoy, even at 20. Lewis and Tolkien were actually very good friends and were both professors at.... Oxford?

I also just had inspiration for a modern day suspense novel. Oooooooh! *shivers* I think, if I do this one right, it might actully turn out to be a half-way decent piece of work!

I've read Chronicles of Narnia a while ago mayhap when I was 11 or 12.

Has anyone read or even heard of Biggles Learns to Fly, Biggles in France or Biggles Defeats the Shwatzstica or some Biggles books. Their good.

I think I might read Eragon and Eldest soon so I can post stuff on all the plagerism.

I finally got around to reading Eragon a few weeks ago. I read the prologue and a bit of chapter one.

I have one word:

Yech.

Needless to say i didn't get any further. This is worst than my Dragonlance-induced vommiting. I don't think I'll be able to stand for days.

(And I know I rooted for this book a while back, but only under the impression it was written by a 15-year old. Well, this 15 year old wasn't a very good writer--the stuff i wrote when I was 12 sounded better than that clunky style).

Apparently the second book hasn't improved. From the reviews, it seems to be more bloated and derivative than the first.

And here's an interesting quote from our dear Paollini:

"I try to achieve a lyric beauty like that of Tolkien at his best and...Beowulf."

Huh?

With that though I leave you.

Mike said:

I have one word:

Yech.

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I agree, although at first I did like the book when I got into it I saw the plagurism.

Mike said:

(And I know I rooted for this book a while back, but only under the impression it was written by a 15-year old. Well, this 15 year old wasn't a very good writer--the stuff i write when I was 12 sounded better than that clunky style).

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Yeah so was mine. I mean I'm almost 15 now and I still write better then that (even though I have really bad spelling).

Mike said:

"I try to achieve a lyric beauty like that of Tolkien at his best and...Beowulf."

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I laugh.


That was all I had to say.

I hate the series. The writing is poor and there is so many spelling errors it drives me nuts!

Some countries spell words different ways...

Okay, looking past the writing style, what did you all think of the plot? If, say Tolkien or Rowling had written it with the exact same plot, would it change how you felt about the book?

I would still believe what I believe about Paolini's work. Even if it was as you said...

The author's has potential, Mikey and NR, more than anyone of us. I dare say I would go far enough to say that you two lack the right to call Paolini a bad writer. You say that you wrote better as a 12 year old Mike my boy, but yet you never got the book published. When Paolini got the opportuinity to publish a book, he took the chance, which takes much more confidence than anyone here has, ESPECIALLY if the guy is 15. And if his writing style is so bad, then why I say is it so flipin popular. Not everyone that reads the books is a kid.

We all have opinions, and you can say what you will 'bout the book, but don't diss the man behind the book. Cause unlike any of us, he's problably more worthy of being the next Tolkien than most other people. Sure, he has critics, and maybe his books are a tad (or 50) beyond the boundary, but he's still only 15, and he took the courage to do something that a brave person would do. Some people don't like his style, but in the end, the stuff of the story is what counts, and many more people than not look to that and appreciate it.

Get me?

I do, but at what point did I say he was a bad writer? I've been the one saying I liked the books all along. It's been everyone else saying how bad he was. I just said there was a lot of similarities between it and LOTR.

And what would you say if I was a published author?

It's one thing to say something, and another to do, NR.

He has a lot of potential; I'll say that too. I think at times I've written better than him, but I don't know if I could do the volume he has, and to do it before you are 18 is exceptionally good. A lot of adult writers have somehow managed to get published with worse. I've read them.

Still, I will say, I've caught the guy with a lot of langauge that should've been sliced down for eloquence. I've caught him snatching and stealing a lot from other writers.

I'd like to see what he does in the future.

No one has answered my question. Elgee skirted around it, but what about the plot? Did you/ didn't you like it? Why? Please, I thought it was a good concept.

You say that you wrote better as a 12 year old Mike my boy, but yet you never got the book published. When Paolini got the opportuinity to publish a book, he took the chance, which takes much more confidence than anyone here has, ESPECIALLY if the guy is 15

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He wasn't 15. He started the book when he was 15. He published it at 17. He's now in his 20s.

#2, his parents owned a publishing company. It was self-published before the marketers took hold of it. So really, he didn't need guts. He just needed proud parents.

#3 Now I'm in the same boat as paollini, because my stuff is being sent off for publishing.

And that's probably all I'm ever going to say about this topic, because I really don't care anymore. I WILL watch the movie, because I'm a big fan of John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. But i won't bother reading any of his books until they stop calling him "kid Tolkien" and instead praise him for striking out in his own territory.

Who wants to be the "next Tolkien"? Don't people want to be remembered for writing something that is completely theirs?

Mike said:

And that's probably all I'm ever going to say about this topic, because I really don't care anymore. I WILL watch the movie, because I'm a big fan of John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons. But i won't bother reading any of his books until they stop calling him "kid Tolkien" and instead praise him for striking out in his own territory.

Who wants to be the "next Tolkien"? Don't people want to be remembered for writing something that is completely theirs?

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I will probably go and see the movie as well (NR how bout in the hols sometime). Ant the Tolkien kid thing. I havent heard that but now I have I think they are only calling him that cause of all the plaguerism.

And the "who wants to be the next Tolkien" question. If I was them then I would want to be remembered for ORIGANAL works rather then something like Tolkien's. It would still be in the Fantasy section of Fiction but I would add in some Sci-Fi to make it interesting.

Yeah, I'll go see it. Hopefully it will be good, and once I finish the current series I'm reading (Dragonlance) I will get onto that list.