I’ve started reading Jumper by NameDoesNotMatter. I would like to formally apologise about all the harsh things I’ve ever spoken about that film.
Fine, the cast is unlikeable and the action scenes are just fisticuffs in the air, but my god, in comparison to the teenage dreck that is the book, it’s a masterpiece. At least they tried to build a credible back story for the main character.
In the book, he literally thinks everyone is out to sexually assault him (and somehow they seem to), he solves his problems by throwing money at it, instead of any actual creativity, and the author desperately tries to portray him as a mature-for-his-age adult, despite the fact that his first reaction to anything is crying followed by petty revenge.
I’m just flicking through the pages, pausing at any plot bits, and then flicking on.
I don’t know about worse, but the Eragon books and movie are equally terrible.
I’m a bit sick of its narratives around sexuality and state, apart from that I really liked the books, but HATED the movie.
I just re-read them last year. What narrative are you talking about? Is it to do with Eragon not understanding that he’s a teenager and he shouldn’t hit on the elf princess who is literally 80 years older than him?
Arya is not a viable partner for him for at least another five to ten years, IMHO actually for like 20-30 years. Eragon is still a displaced peasant with power not seen for millenia and Arya is a monarch of a superhumanity, who was stuffed with knowledge and experience since birth while having a very different mind. Eragon might not even fully understand yet how relationships work and how truly different elves are.
Roran’s martial masculinity and Katrina’s clicheed submission, Sloan’s power trip etc.
I think the whole point was that Eragon wasn’t right for Arya, I thought that was quite refreshing and a pretty important message for adolescents. It’s a pretty big deal, imo that they don’t end up together at the end, and eragon has to get over it. I think thats an original part of an overall cliche but enjoyable book. I do agree with roram and Katrina’s plot though.
Eragon was my first foray into proper swords and sorcery fantasy after Harry Potter.
Are the books really that bad in your opinion? By no means do they reinvent the wheel, but I enjoyed the magic system and enjoyed the aspect of Dragon + Rider and that relationship we see between the two.
I haven’t read much other Fantasy besides LotR and Stormlight Archive, but I enjoy the Inheritance Cycle.
The books end that bad. The first couple were pretty good, but the ending was awful and ruined the whole series.
Also the buttmonkeying of the MC was a bit insufferable at times (also Saphira was an insufferable cockblock and for the wrong reasons)
Take my opinion with a slight grain of salt because it’s been at least a decade since I read the book and a half of the series that I got through, but from what I recall the books just didn’t really have much to them - flat characters, awkward dialogue, and the actual prose itself was pretty bad. It was also boring enough that I just didn’t care about anything that was happening, and I’d read enough good fantasy by the time I read Eragon that its flaws were hard to look past - I know the dude was a teenager when he wrote it, but that doesn’t make the work magically better. Not trying to shit on anybody’s parade, but it just really wasn’t my thing.
Granted the author was quite young when he started the series (15) to when the first book got published (18, first self published then republished by an established publisher a couple years later). He’s came out with a new series recently, but I don’t know how much better it is.
And while I’m not saying the books are anything great, they’re still a far cry from the movie imo.
