As an adult reader, and somebody whose literary tastes have been known to include the likes of Joyce and other so called heavyweights, I occasionally wonder about my predilection for reading fantasy and other material that presents little or no intellectual challenge. Yet, when I think more on it I realize that although there might be a certain intellectual gap between the various books that I read, the authors I enjoy the most are the ones who are primarily storytellers. It doesn't matter whether it's Joyce or Rowling, as they are both concerned with recounting the events that have impacted on their characters, and how those events bring change into their characters' lives.
I'm sure I've scandalized quite a few folk by likening Leopold Bloom to Harry Potter, but I read for enjoyment, not for prestige or any other sort of intellectual bedpost notching. So while some may think Ulysses and Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone are worlds apart, as far as I'm concerned they are both well-told stories that bring me great pleasure to read. Certainly the authors have such vastly different styles that there can be almost no comparison between the two, but in the end they both have created a series of characters whose stories they are intent upon telling.
Whenever I find a story that I've not read before that gives me as much pleasure as the ones mentioned above, I feel like I've been given a great gift. Most recently that gift came in the form of an omnibus edition of The Inheritance Cycle: Eragon & Eldest by Christopher Paolini and published by Random House Canada. This is another occasion of me coming late to the feast, as I know the first two books have been available for a while now, and although I'd seen their titles in the book stores for a while, and had toyed with picking up a copy, I confess it took watching the movie adaptation of the first book Eragon to get me interested enough to read the series.
For those of you like me who are playing catch-up on the series, the third and final book Brisinger was published at the end of September, this omnibus edition containing the first two books being a convenient and inexpensive way to get up to speed. It not only contains the complete texts of both books, but as a bonus feature (not just in DVDs anymore) they've thrown in copies of Paolini's original hand-written manuscripts - making you once again grateful for the marvels of typesetting, as outside of a doctor's I swear that authors have the worst handwriting I've ever seen.
In Eragon we meet the title character, a farm boy of fifteen, around whom the action of the whole series will be focused. While hunting in a mysterious mountain ridge near his village known as the Spine, his quarry is disturbed by a sudden explosion, and although he misses his shot at a deer, he is left with a mysterious blue stone. On the off chance that he may be able to barter the stone for money or food he returns home with it, only to discover the treasure it contains is far more dangerous or valuable than he could have ever imagined. For the blue stone is a dragon egg, one of three that remain from the glory days of when dragons and their riders led the land of Alagaesia and peace and prosperity reigned. But those days are long gone, and an evil king, Galbatorix, now rules with an iron fist.
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