Criticism
The books have been criticized for their derivative nature. The two most commonly discussed sources are Star Wars (because of numerous similarities in the plots) and The Lord of the Rings (because of the setting, elven and dwarven races, the language and character and place names). Even many positive reviews note that the work pulls strongly from the conventions of fantasy, in characters, maps, dialogue and concepts.
The reviews of Eldest were similar. Paolini was cited as having developed as a writer from Eragon, but also noted were strong use of The Empire Strikes Back as source material, as well as The Two Towers and Dune. USAToday also cited strong echoes of Star Wars in Eragon's plot, while Entertainment Weekly writes that the plot closely resembles that of The Lord of the Rings.
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“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
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