- A young boy named Eragon, raised by his Uncle Garrow and Aunt Marian in the land of Alagaesia, where the evil King Galbatorix lords over the land, finds a saphire colored egg and thinks it is some sort of valuable stone. He tries to sell it, but it ends out hatching, and revealing a small dragon inside.
Eragon raises the dragon, and gleans information about them from Brom, the village's storyteller. He gives his female dragon the name 'Saphira', from a dragon name that Brom gives him.
Soon, evil beings called the Ra'zac come to Eragon's village, and murder his uncle Garrow (his cousin Roran being somewhere else, and his aunt having died years before), leaving Eragon with a heavy thirst for revenge.
Brom finds Eragon and Saphira, says he knows about dragons, and insists that he allow him to train Eragon, so he might live though his quest to kill the Ra'zac. Eragon agrees, and him and Brom and Saphira leave, for the Ra'zac are leaving, and the trio don't want to lose them.
After dropping off at a massacered village, having Eragon's fortune told by Angela, and getting information from Jeod, a wealthy merchant and an old friend of Brom's, they try to find out the Ra'zac's hiding place, which leads to them fleeing for their lives from Hellegrid.
While on the run from Ra'zac, they get attacked, and Brom is wounded. A young man named Murtagh rescues Eragon and Saphira, and offers to help them with their quest. They reach a hidden cave, where Brom wakes up and tells Eragon he was a Dragon Rider, and that his dragon, Saphira, was killed by the traitor Morzan. He then dies, leaving Eragon heartbroken.
Shortly after they get captured, and Eragon meets Duraz, a evil Shade that is intent on learning Eragon's true name (learning the true name of a person will allow anyone control over a person). With a little bit of luck, Eragon and Murtagh escape to join Saphira, rescuing a elf woman in the process.
When they reach safty, Eragon heals her, and finds out from her mind the way to the Varden, and that she must have medicine from them is she wants to be healed. They journey there, where and Saphira discover that Murtagh is Morzan's son, (Morzan being the traitor Dragon Rider that allied with Galbatorix, the evil king of Alagaesia, to kill the rest of the Dragon Riders and in doing so killed all the dragons that did not escape Alagaesia), and ally themselves to the Varden.
A battle is waged, and Eragon and Saphira must fight against the Shade Duraz, or die in the process...
All together, a great book.
Rated by buyers
- StephaniThis book kept me involved in the story from the very first chapter to the last page and wanting more! I couldn't wait to get out and read the subsequent book, and the next! Hopefully they won't keep us waiting for book 4 for too long!
Rated by buyers
- YuckReads like a particularly bad D&D module got sick on and threw up a junior thesaurus. The ratio of made-up words is high, the name of the king is a mishmash of the lead Decepticon from Transformers and 'dominatrix,' words aren't used properly, and there's a huge amount of redundant language. I realize this is the author's very first book, but doesn't his publisher have editors?