History Now

Just finished the most recent Christopher Paolini book Brisingr. The best of the series (so far). The writing is solid and streamline if not innovative or riveting. It reads, at least in part, as a bridge or a prequel to the final book (which it is so that can be forgiven). It seems as if Paolini forgot about the more interesting members of the secondary cast. He gives them cameos in order to tie up loose ends so that he can push them into the background—as if he realized they would not play a bigger part in the book despite the build he gave them. Most notably: Arya, and Angela. Straight forward fantasy with mediocre character development and at least a couple hundred pages that could have been cut or used to focus on Arya and Angela. The Roran story line became somewhat tiring, and Paolini made the character unbelievable even in a fantasy world such as this one (killing 200 men alone), and the once good character of Nasuada may have been diminished into nothing more than a cliché despite a strong showing from her in the beginning of the book. All in all, worth reading if you have already read the previous two books.