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Is there any sense in still having it, or should it go?

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Win a copy of Brisingr signed by Christopher Paolini!
 This is taken from Shurtugal.com about how to win a signed copy of Brisinr.


"**Take just a few minutes to vote and let us know in the comments once you've done so. We'll be choosing one lucky commenter who voted for the Harry Potter Alliance to each win a copy of Brisingr signed by Christopher Paolini!**

Our good friends and neighboring Harry Potter fandom champions have emailed us to ask for our help in winning a $250,000 charity grant from Chase for the Harry Potter Alliance, a non-profit group dedicated to literacy, advocacy, and human rights work. This group, inspired by Dumbledore's Alliance in the Harry Potter series, recently sent over $123,000 in aid to those affected by the recent tragedy in Haiti and have won the open respect and support of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. While this is not a Harry Potter fan site, we know that Inheritance fans feel just as passionately when it comes to charities and the less fortunate.

So what are we asking for you to help the Harry Potter Alliance win first place and $250,000 for their charity?

You can make a big difference with only a few seconds of your time. The HP Alliance is in 1st place to win $250,000 which will help us all do more to get books to children in need, and save lives through raising money for charities.

To vote, CLICK HERE, press the green “Get started to vote” button, hit “Like” (if you haven’t already), and then press “Vote now.” Encourage your friends and other fans to vote too! (Voting for the HP Alliance happens through Facebook.)"

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Is anyone still out here?
If so, where are you?

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Odd Similarities in Bishop and Paolini
I was going to post my thoughts on some odd similarities in Anne Bishop and Christopher Paolini, but someone beat me to it.
You can read it here:
http://community.livejournal.com/antishurtugal/265233.html
There are also some comments that give you more information about the three Bishop series.

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Calling Jacob Ford - quickly :)

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Eragon RiffTrax Released (now for both PAL and NTSC)
The Eragon RiffTrax is now available for Uncut PAL version of the film as well as the US Cut of the film.

Keep up with the RiffTrax news over at rifftrax 

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Eragon RiffTrax Announced
Mystery Science Theater 3000s Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) have announced their latest upcoming RiffTrax, Eragon!


Keep up with the other news over at rifftrax

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Icons!!
My sister recently made a batch of 49 Eragon themed icons. We only have MSPaint on our computer, so it's nothing fancy. But I think they're beautiful all the same. :-) The reason I am making this post is because she is lazy and has no photobucket account.

The breakdown is as follows:

2      quotes icons
6      Eragon/Other character icons
41    Murtagh icons (yes, we are obsessed)

Preview:

         

(The rest are at my journal...)

x-posted to antishurtugal

Current Mood: happy

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ASFF
Hi, guys. There is now an Anti-Shur'tugal fan fiction forum. If you'd like to submit your parodies, serious revamps, what-have-you, go ahead and post it there. There's a holiday contest. Have fun!

Crossposted to antishurtugal

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irritating to a fault
I used to visit Shurtugal.com last summer and was always somewhat alarmed at how ban-happy the moderators were for people who didn't "stay on topic!" in the news comments. (This was before the forums so people would discuss all aspects of the Inheritance trilogy in the comments and be banned for doing so.) So it was especially alarming to me when--after being particularly snarky towards people straying off topic--the moderators posted a mock news story pertaining to someone on the staff who broke their arm. I was naive enough to point out the inherent hypocrisy in their tactics and was promptly banned from commenting.

This summer, I discovered Anti-Shurtugal and was pleased that they allowed people to air their grievances about the series and its apparent flaws. But then the forums opened and suddenly it's become a website geared towards insults and threats of physical harm, and openly discusses topics of incest between Paolini and his sister, and whether or not Paolini's parents castrated him to maintain his high voice. I have never commented but can foresee what would happen: "Freedom of speech and I have a right, nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!"

So I can't take the fans seriously and I have no respect for the anti-s. One refuses to admit the books have flaws and the other is so preoccupied with hate that they've lost sight of their original intention. Say what you will about Christopher Paolini's writing, but he--and his family--did nothing to deserve either one of those websites.

/end

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Eragon film
Have you watched it, if so, what do you think about it?
http://firefred.livejournal.com/108501.html

Current Mood: amused

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Hey guys! I'm, uh, relatively new to Eragon fandom on lj. But not so much on ff.net. I wrote murtagh fics. And they had angst, and I'm fairly ashamed of them. And I am still writing them, as is evidenced by the fact that I'm doing Murtagh on fanfic100
So I just wanted to say that I'm here, and I like Murtagh, and hate pretty much everyone else. Except Morzan, and Nasuada, and I'm ambivalent to Katrina, Galby-san, and Elva.
Also, I think that Chris Paolini can't really write, but is amusing, and provides a wealth of fun when you write slash in his fandom. *scary grin*

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Honor thy elders
Wheel of Time
Robert Jordan, the author of the "Wheel of Time" series, is very sick. You can go here and say something encouraging if you like his books

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/

Please do so

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I wonder what Fiedler would've said about Paolini
I was going to cross-post this from antishurtugal, but I realized there are a fair number of people here who belong to both communities, so, to prevent those who are from seeing the same thing twice, and to inform those who wouldn't otherwise notice anything, I'll just provide a nice little link instead.

"Everyone knows that in our literature an age of experimentalism is over and an age of recapitulation has begun; and few of us, I suspect, really regret it."

And what does that have to do with Christopher Paolini?

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New meat coming through
I don't think I've joined this yet. So, hello, CP group. I'm Kitty, nice to meet y'all. And just so the few fans in here can know, I am one of those people that doesn't like the series. I know, I know, they're everywhere. Like parasites. (But I don't bite.)

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a question of timing
Quick food for thought:

I was listening to the audio file of Paolini's presentation at the 2004 Maui Writer's Conference in which he details the self-publishing process of Eragon as well as mentions the "20 or 30" other stories he's already got outlined once the Inheritance Trilogy is completed.

Right, so, based off his own words, the Eragon process took about three years from start to edit to publication, and an additional year of in-house performances prior to Knopf's subsequent offer. Suspending that whole "if this book didn't start to make a turnaround soon, we'd all have to get real jobs" bit of his presentation, say they managed to sell enough to maintain a decent standard of living so that they could continue pushing the book. With no contract and no schedule and no substantial income coming in, I'm just wondering how and when Paolini could sit down and write the next two. I mean, would the trilogy have been his life's work? Would he have even finished it, or abandoned it for a new project? Would he ever have the chance to work on those 20 or 30 other ideas? (For my part, I do hope he hasn't already plotted out everything he'll write in his lifetime; there's no real discovery or growth in picking up an outline from five to ten years ago and filling it in as such.)

It's already been said that, had his parents not more or less "bet the family fortune" on the venture, he might have given up. That in itself could be another topic--his lack of dedication to his own work seems to imply he was too young to be doing this and/or he wasn't passionate about his story to be doing it in the first place. But my main point was the hypothetical curisoity of how Eragon would have panned out without major publication.

(As a side note, how lame is it that I have to fight the urge to cite my sources and add footnotes to a livejournal entry? School totally eats my spontaneity.)

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Hi, I'm new, and I enjoy Eragon's book, "Eragon", because all the aspects of the book so far have made it 100% pure fantasy that is hard to find. It lights up your imagination.

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*cough cough splutter*
Hey, brand-spankin' new member and so on. It was a real wrench deciding which community to join (between this or anti-shurtugal), as I'm not really in love with the books, but I'm not really against them, either. I don't like the heavy derivations, but I love that Paolini dressed up and hit the pavement to sell his book prior to being marketed by Knopf. So here I be.

At any rate, I was re-reading through Eragon and was struck by how many unintentional funnies were to be had. And then I drew one. ( pg.43: 'He lifted and turned it over (...) but was unable to find any distinguishing marks'Collapse )

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Dragons! Or: A Really Effing Long and Biased Comparison Between Two Books
(Cross-posted from antishurtugal).

A few weeks ago I mentioned Naomi Novik's new Temeraire trilogy, only recently released in the US, and I promised a comparison between the first book, His Majesty's Dragon, and Eragon. And I promised to finish much earlier than this. I'm lazy, though, so I've missed all my self-imposed deadlines. Terribly sorry. Here's the comparison now, in all its...very long...er, glory.

Christopher Paolini once said that all fantasy is derivative. That may be true, but it doesn't quite excuse the fact that his Inheritance trilogy is still sod-all boring and unoriginal. Farm boy? Check. Ancient order? Check. Wise old man, beautiful maiden, evil empire, etc.? Check, check, check, and etc. Star Wars with dragons, whoo-hoo-hoo.

But if all fantasy is really derivative, the basic premise of Paolini's books--Hero finds dragon egg and fights evil empire--somehow manages to work much, much better in Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon, the first book in her Temeraire trilogy. Surprising? Similar premise, yet different story. And may I mention that this is Ms. Novik's first book, too?

Ok, enough bias (riiiiiiight....) On to the books:

Summary of Eragon, from the cover:
When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy; perhaps it will buy his family meat for the winter. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old storyteller for guidance, Eragon and the fledgling dragon must navigate the dangerous terrain and dark enemies of an Empire ruled by a king whose evil knows no bounds. Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands. . . .

Right. Enough bullshit. Summary of His Majesty's Dragon, from the back cover:
When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future–and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

Ok, so we have that out of the way. I always hated summarizing books, so that's why I used the books' own summaries. Anyway. On to the books. Many thanks to quenbolyn for her input in the email discussions we had.

( Lots and lots of bias ahead!Collapse )

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Galbatorix and other enemies
I was just thinking about these things earlier today and I figured I’d share my thoughts. Forgive me if they’re jumbled; I’m writing them as I go.

What would you say the enemy in Eldest is? I wouldn’t say there really is any. Sure, the Ra‘zac were after Roran and the villagers of Carvahall, but Roran was not the book‘s focus. Eragon, who was the focus of the book, did not really have a set enemy to face. In the first book he had Durza as the main enemy, but here the book is so full of his training that there really isn’t any enemy. I wouldn’t call Galbatorix’s troops an enemy since they did not appear throughout the book like Durza did — they just appeared at the end when they were fighting the Varden.

( A Matter of Perspective: Galbatorix and the VardenCollapse )

Current Mood: contemplative

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