All the reviews had me worried for nothing!

Seriously! after reading the reviews of this last book I almost decided not to read it. It was just as good as the previous three.

However, I do believe I understand now why everyone seem to slam it with a disappointing review.

Here is why:
I am sure you all have read many books in the past, and when you finally finish the series you start to imagine what would happen afterwards. Well in this last book it has that information. The book actually ended (In my opinion) about 3 quarters (or more) of the way through the book. In this audio version... at what I would have called the end of the book there is an addition 4.5 hours left, all of it about what happens afterwards.

Simply put about one (or two) chapters after the war with Galbatorix is over that is what I would call "The End:". The rest of it should have been called something else. The intensity of everything that had just happened can not be matched with the piddly administrative stuff that happens afterwards. It was interesting, and I enjoyed reading it. However if the book would have ended where I think it should have, they my last impressions of the book would have been "OMG! Wowness! Group Hug!". But if you are like so many others who have left those comments that are less then amazing, it is because they are judging their whole experience on the way the feel at the end of the book. Which like I said tapers off to Not so Amazing. In fact it went from "Group Hug" to just "ug"... :(

But I didn't let that ruin it for me. Because like I said the bug ended for me with "OMG! Wowness! Group Hug!" the rest was just the administrative stuff that happened afterwards.

Advice read until you find what you feel was the end, then close the book and say "OMG! Wowness!" Gloat on it a bit then when you ready to read about the administrative stuff afterwards open it up again and finish it.

I hope this helps. Group Hug!

133 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Wrapped up the series nicely.

I read the first three books in hardback and reread them all before I got to this final addition. I thought that Paolini wrapped up all the loose ends nicely and pulled together elements from the previous books.
There may have been a few gaps or things overlooked but they were slight enough not to bother me. It was a journey worth experiencing.
I have the performance a 4/5 only because of my reading of the first 3 books and I didn't care for the interpretation of the dragons voices. I always imagined them having normal voices with a vast resonance, the way you might interpret a voice of a god, and not deep and rumbling as they are interpreted by the audio because they speak with their minds and not their mouths. If they did speak with their mouths it would have been perfect. That is no fault of the performer though.
I was definitely grasped and wanted to listen to the entire book once I got about one third of the way through. It does climax several hours before the ending but there were a lot of loose ends to wrap up and was worth the extra few hours.

10 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Perfect timing of convenient trails and successes

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Other reviews pride the authors "detail". I would consider the "detail" more of rambling. Providing every possible option at each situation does not seem like detail but more of the author wanting to show each option he thought of before the one he picked. There are so many questions left unanswered throughout this series, yet the author, through all his "detail", never answers them, even though his "detail" made a fourth book necessary? He even takes you down paths in this book and doesn't give you what they discover there. Just, "oh we found it. It made us happy. but we are not going to tell you what it is". Had this series been two books and void of all the pointless side chapters that had no meaning to the main story, perhaps it would have been a 4 or 5 star experience. The reader was wonderful but could only read the words he was given.

Has Inheritance turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not in this genre but I will not be reading another book by the author again. I made the mistake of getting all four of these books before listening to the first one when I had an audible membership. Each one in the series got progressively worse.

What does Gerard Doyle bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

If I had to read this book, I would not have finished it. Having it in audio made it where I could at least do something else while having this in the background. Even then, I found myself stopping what I was doing in disbelief of how bad the story was. If I had to give it my undivided attention, I wouldn't have made it to 100 pages.Doyle does a very well job expressing the characters in my opinion. Those who do not like his voices could probably agree that he does a good job keeping them separate from each other and consistent across the 4 books.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

This one had none. After four books, Eragon continues to be potentially useless. You would think that by now he would rise to be a hero or have some skill in something. The only thing he excels with is a lack of confidence. All of the heroes in these tales are to weak to accomplish common goals and then find a weapon, enchantment, surge of energy that allow them to accomplish that which troubled them so much. This accomplishment is quickly put in check by a new trouble that belittles the new accomplishment. But don't worry, a new item key to over come this new trouble is right around the corner. You just have to get through a few thousand words from the author to describe every possible thought that came into his mind before he reveals it.

Any additional comments?

Many other fantasy books have told of complete fantasy realms with fewer words and more satisfaction. These tales are said to be full of detail, yet much is left unanswered and full sides of the story are not told. There are full armies and groups of characters who you know by name that just fade completely from the story unless they are near two or three of the main characters. At least half of this book is wasted on parts that have you screaming not only because you know this is going to mean nothing after you finish reading it but also because you cannot believe the Eragon is wasting his time with everything else going on to tend to this task and wasting his energy, which he is always trying to conserve because of being tired. It's okay though, although he is always exhausted, he always finds time to rest or recover enough when the author decides to talk about Roland.

Though it is a small part, every time the "men who feel no pain" appear just frustrated me. What a lazy solution for the author to tilt battles for the empires side and it is used two or three times to defeat or pull the heroes down. Really? Just because you cannot feel pain means you can only be killed by having your head cut off or by bleeding out? And even bleeding out seems to take much longer than a normal person because they cannot feel pain? Give me a break. If 200 of these men could kill much more, why isn't the whole army like this? That would lead to a quick victory for the empire. This book is rampant with battles that some how balance out until one side reveals its "Ah ha!" moment.

My favorite part of this tale was after Eragon did something completely pointless that I had to listen to for an hour or two. He then went to another character and she told him how pointless it was. I felt like it was almost the author admitting how pointless his own parts of the story had been. There were many times that I wanted to cut my loses and abandon this story and read the cliff notes to complete the tale.

4 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Ignore the nay-sayers.

This is a great book and a good ending to an epic tale. The first book is my favorite, but this one is a close second.

13 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Difficult to finish

The characters have not developed since the first book. The situations are contrived. The plot thin and slogging. This is a most difficult book to complete. I enjoyed the earlier books but found this to be filled with meaningless tensions and cheerless results.

3 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Terrible ending...

This book series to begin with was just ok. The series just got worse, in my opinion with every book that was written. The ending of this book was just awful and leaves you feeling completely unfulfilled. It just kept dragging on and when it finally gets to the end your left with a WTF moment? Like, that’s it?

2 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Decent story, terrible performance.

I had read the first three books on paper, so I had made my own voices for all the characters. That was not a problem, except for the voice of saphira.

2 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Lengthy and bad finish to a decent book

The Inheritance Cycle series started out strong but the farther along, the more plot device characters and coincidences happen to the point that I no longer cared what happened to most of the characters. This down side in itself is the worst thing that you can do as a writer because if people don't care for your characters they will most the time stop reading. I stuck it out though, but again was disappointed by the number of corners that the author had written himself into that made the ending painful to listen to.

2 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

missing something

Was a great story, but seemed kind of lost every once in a while. Poor Eragon.

2 les gens ont trouvé cela utile

Disappointing limp to the finish of beloved series

I thought this series was getting stronger. I believed and looked forward to this conclusion for a long time. I bought the book even though I hadn't bought any others.

It just left me disappointed. It was really GREAT for 70% of the way. But then it simply fizzled. It ran out of emotional oomph and wandered from what made it special.

Worth listening to. Worth completing the series. But somehow lessens overall a series that probably needed its strongest installment in order to become great. Take it for what it is: an ending and not a compelling conclusion.

Enjoy, but don't get over-excited and try to make the series into something it's not.

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