2 posts tagged “author”
And yes, it needs the exclimation mark. This is mainly because there is a chapter in the book called Brisinger! with an exclimation point. This weirded me out. This weirded me out alot. Chapter titles should not have punctuation.
I re-read Eragon and Eldest before reading this, and was reminded yet again why I hate this series. I despise it absolutly, because despite bad writing, cliched characters, plagerism, quoting, starwars "I am your father..."ish things and generaly making me think that the tough guide would probably be a necersary accesory for anyone living in that world, I like the series. I was even excited about getting the next book. I got it on the day it came out, a couple of hours after the world wide release (2:01 in aus, I got it at 4:00) the lady asked me if I wanted a free poster with that, to which I replied "Err do I have to?" and then she asked if I wanted a free bag, which I accepted before dad could realise that this meant you normaly have to pay for bags there, which he has a rather irrational anger about.
I started reading on the way home, and was rather shocked by the first chapter. Firstly; he actually skipped a large portion of time between the books, during which stuff had happened! It was a revalation! I don't need to know exactly what each character is thinking at every moment of the story! Plus, it was rather gruesome. My second shock was when a storyline was actually resolved. Yay! Resolution!
I kept reading, and more and more I found that, I wasn't laughing at the book. It was still cliched, the nature of the story ensures this, but it wasn't in a way that made me want to stick a knitting needle into the authors knee.
I got into the story very quickly, and was as usual frustrated about that stupid "Eragon... I'm your Brother. Morzans your dad and I'm going to kill you" thing. Very tiresome. But apart from that, I was enjoying it in a way I hadn't enjoyed the previous books, I was enjoying the writing.
Granted, I'm not judging it by the standards I judge other authors, but it was at least the equal to the first chapter of the Magicians Guild (I love you Trudi, but damn that chapter gets on my nerves. Its also partly why I love you, the writing gets better with every word.) And it wasn't that far of being consistantly at the level of Kylie Chan (I feel no need to appoligise for this one, she even admits it on her website, shes a story teller and a brilliant one, but her writing...mmm.) It was actually ok. It might have even verged on good!
And then the moment that made me scream. I think Steph will remember a similar moment when I was reading Eldest. The moments where actually weirdly similar. In both incidents I had woken up early to read, in both incidents I woke up several people. In both incidents the reason involved that stupid, idiotic, fucking cliched piece of drivel that Eragon calls a liniage. Wait... Don't worry, the reason for my scream isn't what you think. Hang on, I want to get this right...I'll just grab the book.
"...fighting to control the emotions courcing through him, he asked, "When I was last here, did you not know who my father was?"
Oromis nodded once. "We did."
"And did you not know that murtagh was my brother?"
Oromis modded once more. "We did but -"
"Then why didn't you tell me *page long rant including everything that has pissed me off about the book so far, that I mostly didn't read* "I'm not about to betray the elves, or dwarves or varden to Galbatorix if thats what your worried about. I will do what I must, but from now on you have neither my loyalty nor my trust. I will not-"
The to Eragon's surprise, Saphira said to Oromis and Gleadr, Tell Him... This argument is without cause. Do not prolong Eragons discomfort any longer.
"You know?"
I know.
"You know what?" Eragon bellowed...*blah blah blah.. dude this author is almost as good as robert jordon at prolonging things*
"In the first place," said Orromis, "We shall be fortunate if you are anything like your father, which, indeed, I believe you are. And as I was about to say before you interupted me, Murtagh is not your brother. He is your half brother."
"My half brother...But then, who...?"
*Useless stuff. Damn it, Hurry up!*
"Oromis-elda, if Murtagh is my half brother, then who is my father?"
Look into your heart, Eragon, said Gleadr *please don't say 'you know it to be true' please don't say 'you know it to be true'* You already know who he is, and you have known for a long time. *better...marginally.*
Eragon shook his head. "I don't know! I don't know! Please..." *Oooh he's hyperventilating. AWESOME*
A gout of smoke and flame jetted from Glaedr's nostrals as he snorted. Is it not obvious? Your father is Brom.
*3...2...1...SCREAM!*
Thank god for that. Oh THANK YOU! OH THANK YOU! He fixed it! HE FIXED IT! Sure, Brom being his father isn't that much less cliched than Morzan being his father, but its a margin that makes a huge difference to me. It's a margin that might just mean that if I ever meet Christopher Paolini, maybe, just maybee, I won't stab him with a knitting needle. Brom is Eragon's father... see this is how it should be. This way, hes just doing the standard fantasy thing, rather than the complete starwars thing. Yay for that. Now maybe I can enjoy the rest of the book.
And you know what? I did. Maybe not as much as I would a new Aussie Fantasy or Locke Lamora, or Tolkien or Pierce or Pullman or Locke Lamora but I did enjoy it. It made it worth the $28 I paid for the book.
Highlights where mostly located after the part where I screamed. They included a tree frustrating Eragon and Saphira, Saphira trying to kill the tree, and a rather apprehensive Eragon watching as half the forest walks over and surrounds them. They totaly got beathen up by the trees. Apearences by Angela and Solumum, which was most of the reason I liked the previous books, where again awesome. Eheh rabbits... shall I give you the quote? It was totaly Bard.
"You should think about your wards better. Perhaps you should create a trinket to give to the spellcasters that protects them from crazed rabbits. You don't know how many spell casters have been killed by crazy rabbits. It's very common."
Yeah. Another highlight was Eragon finally getting a new sword, and it acting completely Tough guide on him, and bursting into fire every time he says it's name. Like realy hot fire, that can actually burn him, and makes him scream, drop his sword and be very careful about NOT telling people what the swords name is, even when they repeatedly ask him. Fun!
I'm not going to say the book wasn't cliched, it was, but it was less so. I'm not going to say the book was brilliant, but it was better. I enjoyed it. I'll probably read it again. Oh and also, this book is huge, HUGE, 763 pages huge. I can't carry this thing around so I better finish it quickly huge. Paolini got more cudos for the last page of the book, which made me breath a sigh of relief.
Here Ends the Third Book
of the Inheritance Cycle.
The Story Will Continue and Conclude
in Book Four.
Why it's spread over so many lines I don't know, they could have made the text smaller, but the fact he's locked himself into finishing the series with the next book makes me feel better about him.
Maybe he's not another Robert Jorden after all.. maybe he will, with more expetience, even be a good author. One that isn't cliched. One that I don't want to stab with a knitting needle.
Yesterday was dads 50th birthday party, he let me invite one friend, and I chose to bring Marie, who I thought would at least get her moneys worth out of the free alchohol. It was at the Geebung Polo Club in Hawthorne, which is actualy a pretty popular spot with young people from around here.
Before leaving I decided to wear my rainbow psyco scarf, just because it is so incredibly me. I think if I had to describe my personality, presenting that thing to someone with a smile on my face would be pretty effective. Anyway...
Before leaving, mum started to go through the list of guests, "Oh they arn't coming? Shame. Wait Paul... Wayne? Is Trudi coming?" Marie and I look at each other with complete evil glint. Oh the plans. Several jokes followed about Marie finding a knife and killing her, but yeah.
We left and got there, then went and had dips. Marie was making plans with mum to force me to drink alchohol. One of them involved finding a cute guy and getting them to buy me a drink without asking me what I wanted.
"Marie, your idea of what is attractive and my idea of what is attractive differ by about twenty years."
We finaly went upstairs to where we had booked the rooms. We both got a drink, and explored the maze. There were two rooms with fireplaces and the bar room. We then decorated the place with toy cars and road signs. We also placed the red car napkins stratigicly then grabed ourselves a sear on the couch and waited for people to arrive. Some people turned up and dad walks in "Do you want me to introduce you to Trudi." we said no and started 'stalking' her, me demonstrating my stalker skills by trying to take a photo of her in a mirror. Eventualy he did introduce us as her "Two biggest fans" much to our embarrisment. We ran to the loos and then went down stairs and sat around for a while.
Shortly after this we went back up stairs and found callifornian rolls. "Ooh, prawn!" I said, grabbed one and ate it. Marie says "Oh ok, prawn." grabs one, takes a bite and starts making some very, very funny faces, and running around. Turns out that wasn't avacado. I quickly took a picture while she was still making 'Wasabi faces' and then showed it to anyone I could find.
We then retreated to the stir case, where clair came over and chatted. And then she came over. Trudi. (She is REALY tall) and sat down between marie and I. "Hello, I thought I'd come over and do some reasearch."
Marie got in first, and asked if Dannyl and Tayend where in it. I couldn't hear what she said. Claire was starting to look confused, so I explained. "Trudi just happens to be our favourite author." Claire was stunned, and started asking her lots of questions about how you write a book. Trudi's answers were pretty intresting. She talked about not understanding fan reactions, saying "Well there is this one character, Akkarin and I killed him off at the end of the last book, I had no Idea fans were going to react like that. I find the dark silent ones the most annoying." Marie and I both squealed. "Oh girls, this is not a spoiler, he's not coming back. Unless it's as a zombie. BRAAIIINS BRAIINS!" she did a great zombie Akkarin voice. She then told us this story about how in the original draft Rothen had taken Sonea to his ranch in the county, and they had both gone rinding and "..it was all very jane austen." she told us that instead of doing the whole comming into her room and "I know everything, you must be my novice!" thing (she said this in an Akkarin voice) he had ridden up on a black stallion. Marie and I were absolutly cacking myself, and all I could think of was what it would be like to have Colin Firth play Akkarin. Not Good.
She then told us about Sonea in the next book being around fourty and getting very grumpy. "The problem with that is that grumpy and a black magician are not a good mix." we laughed. "There's a problem with there whole system. What if the black magician goes bad? What if they get killed? The guild wouldn't be able to defend themselves, so they need a second magician to keep an eye on the other one. And he happens to be a very upright, moral individual, and Sonea hates him. 'Why can't I go outside the walls?'" trudi crosses her arms and sits up strait "It is against the rules!' the intresting thing is that in the secong book he is hunting someone down and is very scary. He's not bad though."
"Tell me who you think sonea will end up with?" she looks at us, "Oh and it's not him."
Marie asks "Is it someone we know?"
Trudi pauses..."Yes...oh I hope I didn't give too much away."
She started telling us about the underworld in the sequle and how it's alot darker and very gangland, shes been reading gangland biographys and stuff as reasearch and is no longer sure it can remain a young adult novel. She then told us about wondering how far she could go with Cery and about the less icky trades like "Smuggler, or a running a realy clean brothel."
"I can't imagine Cery running a brothel!"
We asked about the blood ring and she didn't tell us annything except that she might not include it in the sequle it might remain a mystery. We talked about the audi books, she couldn't listen to the Aussie one because apparently it made her feel like a kid being read to in the school library, and I told her about Cery and the Blood leaches being cut out of the british ones. She was like... well i can take that as a complement, if they had to take out a whole character then that means my writing was pretty clean. No Savarra!"
We switched to chatting about the prequle and I predicted that fans would be trying to work out who is related to present day characters, and she indicated that that it is possible to work some of them out based on the names.
She told us that the first chapter of the prequle will be up in the next 6 weeks (Squeal) and that the book would be around the same size as priestess.
Theres so much to try and remember! I'm done for now I'll post the second half of the night later on, although I'm sure marie will post and fill you in before I get around to it.
"But how do you come up with Iideas? You must be so creative."
"Not realy, Ideas are deffinitly not the problem. I have more problems not coming up with ideas."
Marie and I are looking at eachother grinning.
Claire left and trudi asked us what we would like to know. She had this thing where she looked at each of us turning her head from side to side, which I found very intimidating.
"To tell you the truth my brain walked out the door when you came up, this is rather intimidating."
"Don't worry, I find talking to fans intimidating."
Ok I think, "Sea leeches."
Her eyes brightened. "Sea leeches!"
"Yeah I adore them, that was an awesome scene. Possibly my favourite."
So she explains about how her editor had told her to have travel, and she had thought, ok who isn't doing much? Dannyl! and to make the journey more intrsting she needed a sea monster, but instead of having one big sea monster, she thought how can I subvert this? So she made them leeches and about this long, the idea being that in mating season they all grab onto you and sink you under their weight, then suck the life out of you.
