Well, Brisingr is over and it only serves to cement one solid fact. Chris Paolini can’t write. He can’t write characters, dialogue, compelling story, fictional language, drama, tension, plausible conflict, or even just flowing prose that doesn’t initiate massive cell death in the brain. In short, he can’t write and the fourth book will end up as exhibit D in the public trial of his talent.
Now something I’ve mentioned before but that bears repeating is that, in spite of the genre differences between them, Chris and Otis have a lot in common. Aside from “flawless” avatars and a naked self hatred for their own species, they are both anchored to a single series. Somehow they both were right there to fill a need that pop culture had just developed. They’ve both mistaken this as validation of their talent.
Someone pointed out, at Impish I believe, that Chris’s author bio lists him as a fantasy/science fiction author. That’s hilarious and frightening. Hilarious because he’s not a science fiction author and horrifying because it means he’s working on it. Much like Otis, I’d wager there’s a little bit of doubt in Chris’s noggin. And right now that sprout of doubt is tickling the back of his brain and keeping him up at night.
‘Is my writing good or do they just like the series? Nah, they have to love my writing. But what if…no, I’ll prove it. I’ll just write something unrelated. Take a little break from the Eragon universe and work on something fresh. Besides, I’m just full of stories. It’s like I’m an idea machine.’
Mark my words, the next book Chris plops onto his agent’s desk will be a scifi novel. What it will be a clone of is anyone’s guess but it will be just as bad and Chris will learn that a good portion of his fans aren’t so much in love with his work as they are with living out the fantasy of saddling up the flamethrower and strafing Imperials who’re wearing the faces of their coworkers and former bullies.
It’ll be a bestseller but, also like Otis’s “Host”, it won’t be quite the smash of previous titles. Successive works will suffer from diminishing returns and he’ll eventually return to his cash cow, realizing that the fans will pay him on the condition that he keep to the material they like. I can only hope that he and Myer follow similar patterns in that the effort taxes their little brains and they vanish back into the obscurity from whence they came.
And if you can’t do that, both of you Otis and Paopao, can you please, please, please learn to write? Seriously guys. Funnel some of that folding money made off the early success and take a few English courses followed up by some creative writing workshops. Hell, employ a ghost writer and just throw them the initial idea and take all the credit. Just stop lowering the quality of literature everywhere.
Either way, tomorrow begins “the short second life of bree tanner”.
Vivisector's Writ 
He’ll probably rip Star Trek as the plucky young ensign whose genius rivals that of his chief medical officer mother.
i wonder if all these book have been optioned for movies? i don’t remember how well Eragon the movie did, but it certainly wasn’t worth a sequel.
Great work, Vivisector! looking foward to more!
Sadly, Eragon wasn’t a complete box office bomb and managed to recoup its budget and make a profit though it did take a nasty, if well deserved, hit from the critics. Luckily though, no one seems interested in finishing off the trilogy.
mmmkay, here’s my final Brisingr brainwave …
For all we’ve seen of Galbatorix, he could be a puppet. Seriously. Taken over by demons, being mind-controlled, being an ineffective figurehead with someone else really controlling Alagaesia – really he could be any type of magical or political puppet.
People on ImpishIdea say that the only hope for the next book to be great would be if Eragon turned out to be a sociopath (he is already, but if the narrative admitted that he is.) That would indeed be great, but I think it would be equally great if Eragon stormed into the castle and demanded to fight Galbatorix, but he found a pathetic, decrepit old man being held prisoner by a magical force begging for release. Or if Galbatorix had actually been dead for a long time, and the country was run by a collection of miscreants who keep up the “king” illusion for political reasons of their own.
I had a parallel thought. The Eldunari that kept by the dragon riders grew bitter and restless for being ignored and subjugated for thousands of years. As they’re beings possessed of thought without bodies they were able to communicate amongst themselves and form a sort of collective consciousness and decided they needed to destroy the society that had enslaved dragons. Thus they searched for an agent who was strong but open to manipulation and they found one in Galbatorix. By accepting their power he allowed them into his mind and is now only a prisoner/puppet to the whims of the Eldunari as they force him to work to bring about a society of dragons ruling over the other races.