Author:: Christopher Paolini
Pages: 497
Setting: Alagaësia. There is, of course, a map in the front of the book.
Means of Aquiration: Been seeing Eragon around for a while. Mom finally bought it when she saw that there was a sequel out. Score!
Level of Inspiration from Lord of the Rings: High.
Ah, Eragon. Beacon of originality! A light of freshness in the dark night of fantasy novels! Let me tell you how it starts out: an orphan farmboy living Nowhere, Fantasyland (who has, of course, been taken in and raised by a townsperson--in this case, his uncle), finds out (in a time of great unrest in the country, although said unrest is only rumors in his backwater town) that Big Stuff is going on, and he's going to be in the middle of it. He is accompanied by an crochety guide who won't answer enough of his questions.
Now, does this sound like anything else you're familiar with? Lord of the Rings? Wheel of Time? Sword of Shannara? Star Wars?
Yeah. I was not enthused.
Despite that, though, I did get into the book fairly quickly. It's got a smirking dragon, which is something, anyway (although rather stereotypical in the category of "dragon companion" personalities). All in all, it's alright. I guess. That's all you really want to know, right? Good.
The magic "ancient language" in Eragon is pretty darn Germanic, too. "Gath un reisa du rakr!" and "Du grind huildr!" both look like things I might have had to translate in my History of the German Language class last semester. (Some meanings are right on, too. Eragon's gata means "path." In Swedish, it means "street." Welden (forest) is very close to German's Wald. Theirra means "their," which isn't quite as much of a giveaway as knifr meaning "knife." Eka means "I," which looks bizarre unless you're familiar with Old German's many baffling versions of "Ich." Stenr is "stone," wyrda is "fate," and I think you get the picture.) A couple other words almost scream "ICELANDIC!" at me.
Of course, the "ancient language" also has the word Aiedail for "morning star." And the language of the dwarves has the phrase "Isidar Mithrim," which almost has to be copyright infringement, doesn't it?