In "Eragon," we meet the title character, a fifteen-year-old boy, being raised by his uncle in a rural area (but his name isn't "Luke"). Eragon happens to find a dragon's egg, and a beautiful, blue dragon hatches, and chooses him as her Rider (but this is not Pern). The egg had been magically hidden by a beautiful Elven princess, Arya (not Arwen), just before the servants of the evil king Galbatorix (not Sauron) catch her and imprison her. Eragon does his best to care for the young dragon, but the king's men come and burn down his home, and kill his uncle (whose name isn't "Owen"). Eragon leaves his home village, to draw the king's men away, with an old story-teller, Brom (not "Obi-Wan") who is really a dragon Rider in retirement (and never was a Jedi Knight). Eragon makes many friends, and ends up living in a stronghold of those who oppose the Empire, er, I mean the King.

The Inheritance Trilogy was started when Christopher Paolini was 15, and finished when he was 19. He is now 22 and I doubt he has had the chance to develop as a writer. Those who champion this series are either completely stunned that a teenager could actually manage to put ink on paper, or just plain haven't read the literary masterpieces that he blatantly plagiarized.

The Inheritance Trilogy is the the self insertion of Paolini himself in a magical Tolkien-esque pseudo-land surrounded by a cast of horribly unlikeable cliche's. It seems that each new book brings Paolini...I mean Eragon a host of new powers, including immortality! The author passes immortality out to characters like candy at a Independence Day Parade, and the characters treat it with the same nonchalant bland stare that they treat every other "event" in the series's insanely dry plot line.

If you're a parent considering purchasing the series for your young writer, do so only as a manual for what to NOT do in their writing. I mean this literally, this is the typical writing quality of any young teen fantasy writer. Any distinguished writer must go through years of refinement, rejection, and soul searching. Paolini had these experiences robbed of him. His publisher parents' connections created this career, not a developed writing style. Moms and Dads, your child can write this well if not better, I can almost promise you; possibly without even blatantly robbing nearly word for word from much better series written by writers who have had a chance to develop. Do your child a favor and buy Tolkien, Rowling, Goodkind, or CS Lewis. Don't lower their standards, The Inheritance Trilogy could quite possibly stunt their growth as writers, I kid you not.

Fans of this series can grow near rabid as they claim that everything in the fantasy genre has been "taken" and that drawing things from those greater series is inevitable. However I find this far from true, if there is always something to imagine, that is the magic of that uniquely human ability. Those greater series drew their influence from ancient mythology, legend, and stories and created wholly unique ideas to weave their literary tapestries. Paolini in his immaturity has taken from these books and comes dangerously close to plagiarism in several instances, most likely tweaked by the insistence of his publishers. This and his own self insertion of Eragon as his insanely perfect immortal alter ego is typical of undeveloped fantasy writing, any teen can and do create it every day with online fanfictions.

I leave you with a quote from Paolini himself. When called upon to write a review for J.K. Rowling's (a truly developed writer with more than her fair share of failures) successful "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" this is what he had to say:

"One of the greatest pleasures of reading this series is seeing J.K.Rowling develop as a writer, and she certainly spreads her wings here".

Arrogant no? Please don't let your child end up like this.

For those who I was unable to save from the fate of buying Eragon, I must stop you from repeating this terrible mistake. Buy your child a classic, buy them mythologies and legends, buy them books on writing techniques, but for Tolkien's sake, don't buy them the Inheritance Trilogy.