Eldest by Christopher Paolini

Review by Andrew Shin

Eldest is a book written by Christopher Paolini, and is the second book in the Inheritance cycle. The leader of the resistance against the king dies, so his daughter becomes the new leader. Eragon’s friend also dies. Eragon goes to the elves to learn more about being a dragon rider. During a festival, he gets turned into a human elf hybrid. While that’s happening, Eragon’s cousin, Roran, is defending himself from the king’s servants with the help of the town. So he runs away with the town and goes to Surda, one of the few free areas from the king. Eragon learns that the resistance is about to be attacked by a lot of the King’s soldiers, so he goes to help the resistance. The resistance also calls for help to the dwarf nation. When Eragon gets there, the soldiers attack, but he is now nearly unstoppable. When it seems like the resistance is about to lose, the dwarves arrive with the power of plot convenience. Then, Eragon’s friend who got “killed” earlier comes out as a rider, forced onto the king’s side. Eragon and his friend fight, and Eragon’s friend wins. Eragon’s friend flies away on his dragon and the resistance wins the battle.

Eldest certainly is a much better book than Eragon, but still has a long way to go. The romance subplot, where Eragon’s cousin is motivated by love to take his entire town with him is quite cliche and terrible to read. Later in the story, however, it gets much better as Paolini gets into his stride with no terrible romance subplot. This book has much less cliche elements than the first book and is a pleasure to read, if you skip the romance subplot.

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