Du Vrangr Gata (The Wandering Path) Forum Who has read Eragon by Christo..

I have read Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr. I liked them all three, and I certainly put them amongst my favourites - if not my absolute favourite.
I know that a lot of people critique Paolini for - as you said - being very much alike to Tolkien. But I don't think so. The book is to my opinion very different, actually. I think that the people who critique him just don't know very much about fantasy, because in almost every fantasy-book there are elves and dwarves.

He actually borrowed not so much from Tolkien compared to these;

Beowulf; Tons from this ancient piece of art. For one, there's a dragon, but more importantly there's named swords (one is called 'Aegling' in Beowulf and those who have read Brisingr will see a sword called 'Naegling') a demon-dude and most importantly, 'Hrothgar' (king of the dwarves in Eragon and Eldest) is the name of the king over Beowulf.

Ursula K. Le Guin; mostly minor things, but the major thing that a magic word is a word spoken in Elvish.

I think the criticisms of the Inheritance Cycle are more than true. Brisingr dropped flat in the first few chapters.

But still, I find myself attracted to the series. I'm pretty proud of Chris P for getting his book on there.