I recently read the book Inheritance, by Christopher Paolini. It is the final installment in the series of the same name. As it was the final book in the series, I had extremely high hopes for it when I read it. However, it seemed an underwhelming ending to me. The ending was depressing and the main bad guy dies in a hopelessly out-of-character manner, considering how powerful he was hyped up to be in the previous books. Here is a brief plot summary. The dragon rider Eragon fights alongside the rebellious Varden and elves of Alagaesia to topple the evil king Galbatorix and his servant, formally Eragon's friend and half-brother, Murtagh. The problem? Galbatorix has several hundred dragon souls bound to him to give him great power. Eragon has two. Basically, there are two plots. The main plot follows Eragon as he tries to figure out how to beat Galbatorix. He eventually finds a hidden vault of dragon souls so he can fight Galbatorix. The secondary plot involves his stepbrother (?) Roran, who is a normal man who has risen to prominence in the Varden. Just like any fairy tale, they win, kill Galbatorix, and happily ever after. Right? Wrong. After the "ending", there is a secondary ending, I've forgotten the literary term for. In this second ending, Eragon goes around righting the wrongs of Alagaesia briefly and says goodbye to his friends before leaving Alagaesia FOREVER, away from his love Arya and the rest of his friends, for reasons too complex to describe here. Paolini writes it in a very sad way.
OK. The final book in the series ends with the main character leaving forever and ditching everyone he ever knew except his dragon. The character development is presumably that he matures and realizes his duties and how to keep peace after Galbatorix dies, but it doesn't wind up that way. It simply makes the reader unhappy and makes the previously loved main character look like a dirtbag. I just don't believe that the final book in a series should end in such a depressing way. If you enjoyed the previous books in the Inheritance series, by all means, go ahead and read this - fans like me will find it still quite good. Same goes if you like fantasy and adventure. If you don't, you might want to make this a pass.
Nikolai, thank you very much for explaining why the book wasn't very good whilst not giving away the whole plot. I was also looking forward to this book in the series and except for finalizing the series I no longer think that I will. Your post also describes that it was a good book until the ending or the second ending. Thanks
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Nikolai, although it is very disappointing that Eragon leaves forever i think you overlooked the rest of this great book. there is so much more to Inheritance than the end. there are a lot of great battle scenes and the plot is incredible. CP makes this world seem real and he engages you and keeps you wanting more wondering what will happen next, he also includes a plot with eragon's half-brother, who is tied by and oath to galbatorix, he eventually breaks free and helps eragon defeat Galbatorix. i thought the end was disappointing that eragon left forever but he had many reasons. this book was fantastic even though the end was sad. i would recommend this to anyone.
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