Eldest is the second book in the Inheritance Trilogy. It was released just this past month. We got a box set of this new book along with the first book Eragon.
I read Eragon and couldn’t wait to start on Eldest. I did wait a bit, not long. I finished Eragon and wrote a review here yesterday. I finished Eldest this afternoon.
Eragon was a better book IMO, but it is so only because this is how I traditionally view trilogies, that the first and last are the best, that the middle is a bigger stage-setter for the end. All in all though, this book, Eldest, is full of adventure and growing, fighting and war. Parts of the end are a bit jumbled in my mind. I did race through the book. I couldn’t help it. It was very readable and a delight to read.
I found many parts of it to align themselves to real life situations, how we know someone, then don’t see them, that person changed and grows, and then we see them again. Who are they? Often it is we are are on the receiving end of “who are you?” Eragon goes through this. He changes and it’s fantastical to his cousin, who is going through is own hellish experience and not understanding what’s going on with his cousin, and how the truth comes out … it’s all a shock to Eragon, but not a total shock to the thinking reader. And the changes that Eragon went through as he trained with the Elves are wonderful, but he’s changed so that when he gets to the place of having to be The Rider in war, it’s a bit uncomfortable for him, so many things he’s learned, and grown in mind, body, power … he looks different, and everyone does notice, when he gets to face his foe and then his cousin, it’s them who *to me* make him feel a bit odd about it, like he’s doing weird things. It’s like he’s great about it all, and then others mock him a bit for it, cheapening it.
It’s all about the truth though, the evil in the land of Alagaësia is not those who have magic, for this is a fantasy land, not one which there is a Supreme God in, as of yet. There are religions, but there is no absolute about religion in this fantasy land of Alagaësia, but things about race and religion have come up in Eragon’s learning sessions, and what he’s faced more and more in how this book culminates.
It will be interesting to see how the story goes in the last book. (But must wait, so very long until it’s out in hardback, whenever that will be!)