HALover9000 Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I'm sure many here have at least heard of the Eragon books, and while I'm also sure most here believe them to be pretty bad(as do I), I'm still somewhat interested in the author. He started writing the book when he was 16...which to me, is quite impressive. Do you think he has potential to write a quality fantasy book/series? Any/all thoughts are appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Most people start writing at much younger ages then sixteen, the only difference is they didn't have mummies and daddies in the publishing industry, big fucking deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asjegar Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Sure, he may have [i]had[/i] potential (and that's a huge stretch), but he's 25 now. This alleged potential should have already been realized. Instead, he has been consistently churning out the same quality writing. He really has no excuse. So, in the end... it's about as potentially likely as me becoming a millionaire author. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BookWyrm Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I don't buy into that. Clark Ashton Smith wrote a novel called [url="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Diamonds-Clark-Ashton-Smith/dp/0967321522"]the Black Diamonds[/url] when he was fourteen. This book can be favorably compared to much contemporary fiction. That is without having to stretch and speculate whether or not he [i]could[/i] have potential. Paolini, whether he ever [i]could[/i] have written a potentially good thing, is yet to. Though he wrote a book at the age of 16... let's just say the book was clearly written by a 16 year old. Thinking about this though.... [i]anything is possible[/i]. :dunno: If not that, then what the heck has all this fantasy been teaching me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asjegar Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote]let's just say the book was clearly written by a 16 year old.[/quote] That and it was seemingly unabashed plagiarism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BookWyrm Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='Asjegar' post='1743157' date='Apr 3 2009, 00.38']That and it was seemingly unabashed plagiarism.[/quote] I wouldn't say that. Didn't they make a very popular movie series based on his books? [i]Star Wars[/i] wasn't it? Or was it [i]Lord of the Rings[/i]..... (just kidding) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='Asjegar' post='1743157' date='Apr 3 2009, 00.38']That and it was seemingly unabashed plagiarism.[/quote] I think that's a big part of what makes it feel like it was written by a 16 year old. Frankly, it reminds me of the kind of crap, blatantly copied stories I used to dream up when I was around that age. Basically it reads like he read a bunch of fantasy, watched some Star Wars and then wrote down his day-dream fancy in shitty prose. I believe at some point he also started consulting a thesaurus every 10 words to "make himself a writer" or some such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 John Kennedy Toole wrote [i]The Neon Bible[/i] when he was 16 and it was a hell of a lot better than Paolini. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aidan Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I think Paolini [i]had[/i] the potential to be a decent author, the problem, however, lies in his success. It's difficult for grown novelists to keep success from inflating their ego, doubly so when you're 21 and selling millions of books. From Paolini's perspective, if [b]Eragon[/b] sold a bucket-load of copies, well... why would he change something that's not broken. Instead of being challenged by his writing and growing as a writer, Paolini seems stuck in the tropes established by [b]Eragon[/b] and, based on the quality of the subsequent novels, seems to have little grasp of the areas of his writing that need vast amounts of work. When you're that old, have written three novels, and shown almost no progress as a writer, there's something clearly amiss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 No 16 year-old writer ever has displayed to my knowledge the prowess that's found in Jim Theis's [i]The Eye of Argon[/i]. No one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asjegar Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Yep. He neglects the fact that he needs to improve and his fanboys use "He wrote a book when he was fifteen" as recourse. And that is exactly why I can't respect him. His potential is irrelevant due to his lack of genuine improvement; his idea of prose is, essentially, "big words convey AWESOMENESS". And as a result, his books are elongated garbage. There's a problem when you're 25 and you still write about as bad as you did when you were 17. How does that work? And [i]The Eye of Argon[/i] is perfection in the form of literature. Nothing is as epic. Nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AverageGuy Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1743198' date='Apr 2 2009, 23.23']No 16 year-old writer ever has displayed to my knowledge the prowess that's found in Jim Theis's [i]The Eye of Argon[/i]. No one.[/quote] [quote name='Asjegar' post='1743200' date='Apr 2 2009, 23.27']And [i]The Eye of Argon[/i] is perfection in the form of literature. Nothing is as epic. Nothing.[/quote] You know, someday someone's going to come along and take you guys seriously. And this board will lose all credibility in their eyes. Thankfully, there's no joking about how good [i]The Eye of Argon[/i] is. None. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ormond Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='Dylanfanatic' post='1743198' date='Apr 3 2009, 00.23']No 16 year-old writer ever has displayed to my knowledge the prowess that's found in Jim Theis's [i]The Eye of Argon[/i]. No one.[/quote] [i]The Eye of Argon[/i] is a novella, not a novel. And I don't believe it has ever been formally published, has it? Has Theis ever received any payments for its distribution and copying? Paolini must still be in the running for the most "remarkable" published novel ever written by a 16 year old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaqen the FatManderly Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Paolini's writing and quality of imagination is very similar to many other fantasy writers. Sad, pathetic, true. And I'm not holding out hope that any of them get better. The more you try to polish crap, the more it stinks - and so do you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Hat Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I used to hold Paolini in really high esteem. His books were the second fantasy books i read, after Lord of the Rings, and i thought they were quite good. More importantly, though, he published them so young. I was around thirteen at the time, and i wrote with most of my spare time. I was at that age when a year seems like an IMPOSIBLY long time, and i was determined to write something like Lord of the Rings by the time i was fifteen, as i was convinced that actually growing up was about as far away as 2142, or some other arbritrary date. So i pretty much decided he'd done the coolest thing ever, was determined to do the same, and upped my opinion of the books to be one of the best i'd ever read. When the second book came out i was a bit older. i no longer was convinced that i'd have a bestseller as a teenager, although i still wrote all the time. I read the book, and while i didn't hate it, i was somewhat confused as to why i'd loved the first so much. By the time the third had come out, i'd joined the real world, and had no more illusions about being some sort of uber-author. By then i was reading a ton of fantasy, and really, didn't even see the point in buying it. I finished reading stuff like Harry Potter even though i'd never start something for that audience anymore, but that's because it actually had some degree of quality. Eragon...doesn't. I'm not even completly sure what i'm trying to say at this point (and have come to realize why i love spellcheck/despise internet explorer) but there it is. He's still good for one thing, though. while i no longer have any illusions of publishing a book at sixteen, once i do, i'm gonna make it trash Eragon...or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattD Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 In comparison, Peter Beagle wrote [i]A Fine and Private Place[/i] when he was 18-19, and it's pretty much a masterpiece. There's certainly time for Paolini to improve, and indeed being part of the community of writers may be his best chance to do so. On the other hand, the problem he will have, having had so much commercial success so soon, is that he has a large constituency of fans that give him little incentive to improve -- and indeed may protest if he does anything too "different." I loathe Eddings for the way he constantly rewrote his own material, but I do also remember what a sales flop [i]The Losers[/i] was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='Ormond' post='1743375' date='Apr 3 2009, 08.10'][i]The Eye of Argon[/i] is a novella, not a novel. And I don't believe it has ever been formally published, has it? Has Theis ever received any payments for its distribution and copying? Paolini must still be in the running for the most "remarkable" published novel ever written by a 16 year old.[/quote] Wildside Press released it in book form back in 2006. I should know, since I bought it, read it, and then mailed it to a girl I know in Europe who's been *ahem* [i]lusting[/i] for it for some time now. Theis is dead, so no word on who receives royalties for it or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pita Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Didn't Jim Theis also write some good stuff? I read somewhere that he was always disappointed that he would be remembered for Eye of Argon. I think I found a free e-book of it somewhere... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Hat Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 ...what the hell [i]is[/i] the Eye of Argon? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LianeM Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 [quote name='The Evil Hat' post='1743846' date='Apr 3 2009, 14.56']...what the hell [i]is[/i] the Eye of Argon?[/quote] Pure unadulterated awesome. Behold: [url="http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/eyeargon/eyeargon.htm"]http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/e...on/eyeargon.htm[/url] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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