This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
--Dorothy Parker

Paolini, you're a monster.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

I thought I was over the whole hating Eragon thing. I really did. My seething disdain and howling outrage had cooled into the occasional, dare I say lighthearted, jab at Eragon's suckage. No book, save for the way-more-deservedly-obscure Impergium trilogy, could possibly suck as bad. In the terms of rampant suck, Eragon reigns supreme. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it is the suckiest piece of suck that ever sucked the suck. And no matter my ire at some other piece of literary dredge, I could never let myself (or my faithful readers) forget it.

Well, my complacency has reared up into a raging beast once again. For a lark, I went looking for the release date of the third Inheritance book and wound up on Amazon. And lo, the dark purveyor of Alagaesia didst lurk, crouching in a tiny video screen to speak words of hypnotic venom, words to burn the very ear and sear the soul.

There will be a fourth book.

There is a saying I've got to mention here: "The worst book in a trilogy is the fourth." When authors promise a trilogy, they enter into a pact with their readers. Yea, the story shall end herein. To renig on that is to pull a "trilogy creep", to use the term coined by TVTropes.com (and a huge thank you to `Cedarseed for linking me to it; I've whiled away far too many hilarious hours there.) Paolini is not alone in being guilty of this; Anne Rice, Isaac Asimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Orson Scott Card all did it. However, Paolini's third book isn't even out yet. There is still time for the world to wake up and condemn him. (Fingers crossed!) But I can't shake the feeling that this is less about money (although it probably is) and more about Paolini being incompetent about plotting out his bloody story.

Cancer of the fantasy world, or world-builders disease, is a common pitfall, and not just of the genre of fantasy. Moby Dick is a classic, but that doesn't heal the wounds of three chapters about making rope. I got a similar feeling during Eldest when Eragon watches ants for about the same amount of pages. (And at least the rope ended up being significant somehow, hurtin' Moby Dick and all.) Eragon's tumorous literature has just spilled over into a diseased, pulsing corpsule of a fourth volume.

I don't think I really understood "the boy you love to hate" concept until Eragon. Paolini is my pet hate. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to mail him a bomb or threaten his family. Really I'd just like to punch him in the face (see earlier rant: [link]). I've been in the company of some pretty competent, decent fantasy authors who have met Paolini and share pretty much the same sentiment: "Paolini? Oh wow. Great kid. Really nice, quiet, polite. Can't write for shit, though." Of particular delight to me during the 2006 World Fantasy Convention was when a group of authors who had attended the Maui Writer's Conference that same year talked about Paolini trying to condescend Terry Brooks. (Among this particular group, it was a toss up between who was the bigger ripoff author, since Terry Brooks broke into print with his "Sword of the Rings" Tolkien-esque Shannara series. Personally, I love Brook's Running with the Demon series, so really, if Paolini wants my respect he'll stop milking Tolkien, too.)

I don't know how explicity I've stated this, but I am insanely jealous of the guy. It's like baking a cake. You slave over it, mixing, baking, icing, and carry it out, beaming. And no one in the room cares. But here comes Paolini with his cake, a sub-par one at best, and when he trips, faceplants into his cake, and skids on a trail of icing, everyone in the room applauds. Lousy bastards. But with the utmost, grudging, PAINFUL reluctance ... I must thank Paolini.

Every writer has that moment where they say "Hell, I can do better than that." Eragon was that moment for me. Whenever I think of Paolini's success, a rewrite on my own stuff isn't far behind. Palini might think that his prose is gold the first time around, but I'm not so blind and proud. Neither will I compare myself to Rowling or Tolkien when I'm published. And I'll also get published by my own skill, not because mommy and daddy owned a publishing company. Yes, yes, I'm sure Paolini worked hard, he did go to schools dressed up like the geek he is, but the impetous was marketing. His parents bet the friggin' farm. To coin TvTropes yet again, Failure Is Not An Option. I will not have that luxury.

So here's to you, Paolini, ya incompetent, arrogant jerk. Your boasting of how much detail went into your dwarven city made me rethink the value of my own two-year-old descriptions. Your bragging of how you are Tolkien reforged taught me humility. Your love of single tears made me write my crying characters with a bit of snot once in a while. Your machine-like horses filled me with rage, but made me realize that I also need to do research, on all aspects of medieval life, not just horses, and not just Europe. You taught me that, unlike Saphira, characters must have their own motivation and desires, not serve the plot as a clunky, scaly windbag full of bad dialogue. Oh and 'said'. Thanks to you, I use 'said' all the freaking time now. And vegetarian, aethiest elves who wear leather? Seriously, what the hell was that? Not to mention your super-fast growing, giant, practically immortal dragons would screw up any ecosystem they inhabited, you stupid- er, whoops. I could be here for a while. Let's digress.


You ain't gettin' another red cent from me, my friend. I refuse to buy another volume in the bane of my library. It's not enough you insult your reader's intelligence, now you insult their wallets. Maybe, if you're lucky, I'll pick it up at the library, and my disgust will arise anew and there will be more bloggery. But I'm halfway thinking that the 12 year-olds who loved your book from the start have hit about 18 now, and are more discerning readers. With each volume, I'm sure you'll get weaker and weaker, until your books sink like stones into obscurity.

I'll still wait to punch you, though. Patiently, oh so patiently, with all the coldness of a serpent.