Eragon by Christopher Paolini

What you almost always hear first about Eragon is "wow, it was written by a 17-yr-old." And Christopher Paolini is fully deserving of the respect and admiration he gets — it is indeed an impressive book for a 17-year-old to have written. What he probably should not have gotten was a publishing contract, since while it is impressive for a 17-yr-old, it is less than impressive for a published work of fiction.

If an adult had written and published this, I would have been disgusted (as I was with The Sword of Shannara) with the clear calculation that had gone into the work: "ok, I'll take a lot of Tolkien, a lot of McCaffery Read More