The second of the three volumes Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini was pretty dang good. (click here for a review of the first book)

My greedy hands obtained the audio book on Thursday and didn’t let go until Monday evening – 20 CDs and 12 plus hours later…. much to my demise as the time set aside for my paper got taken up listening to the book.

Pros

• Excellent writing
• Similar to LOTR, Paolini creates a land with tons of history and multiple back stories
• The culture of each race is described and talked about

Cons

• As the main character visits the homeland of each race, Paolini describes each of the races religious beliefs. For the most part, this is very good as it helps set each race apart – however, I feel that he kind of over did it with the elves. In a nutshell, the elves – who are portrayed as the “top” or highest race – hold to very atheist, material-base mindset in which they gain immortality through scientific and logically means. I wouldn’t mind this so much except Paolini spends more time on this view point then all the others combined…
• Similar to The Empire Strikes Back, the Eldest focus more on filler then moving the plot forward..

Overall it’s a great book.