• Inheritance

  • The Inheritance Cycle, Book 4
  • By: Christopher Paolini
  • Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
  • Length: 31 hrs and 17 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (19,483 ratings)

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Inheritance  By  cover art

Inheritance

By: Christopher Paolini
Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
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Publisher's summary

Audie Award Nominee, Best Teens Category, 2013

Not so very long ago, Eragon - Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider - was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest. Now the fate of an entire civilization rests on their shoulders.

Long months of training and battle have brought victories and hope, but they have also brought heartbreaking loss. And still, the real battle lies ahead: they must confront Galbatorix. When they do, they will have to be strong enough to defeat him. And if they cannot, no one can. There will be no second chances.

The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?

This is the much-anticipated, astonishing conclusion to the worldwide bestselling Inheritance cycle.

©2011 Christopher Paolini (P)2011 Listening Library

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

All the reviews had me worried for nothing!

Seriously! after reading the reviews of this last book I almost decided not to read it. It was just as good as the previous three.

However, I do believe I understand now why everyone seem to slam it with a disappointing review.

Here is why:
I am sure you all have read many books in the past, and when you finally finish the series you start to imagine what would happen afterwards. Well in this last book it has that information. The book actually ended (In my opinion) about 3 quarters (or more) of the way through the book. In this audio version... at what I would have called the end of the book there is an addition 4.5 hours left, all of it about what happens afterwards.

Simply put about one (or two) chapters after the war with Galbatorix is over that is what I would call "The End:". The rest of it should have been called something else. The intensity of everything that had just happened can not be matched with the piddly administrative stuff that happens afterwards. It was interesting, and I enjoyed reading it. However if the book would have ended where I think it should have, they my last impressions of the book would have been "OMG! Wowness! Group Hug!". But if you are like so many others who have left those comments that are less then amazing, it is because they are judging their whole experience on the way the feel at the end of the book. Which like I said tapers off to Not so Amazing. In fact it went from "Group Hug" to just "ug"... :(

But I didn't let that ruin it for me. Because like I said the bug ended for me with "OMG! Wowness! Group Hug!" the rest was just the administrative stuff that happened afterwards.

Advice read until you find what you feel was the end, then close the book and say "OMG! Wowness!" Gloat on it a bit then when you ready to read about the administrative stuff afterwards open it up again and finish it.

I hope this helps. Group Hug!

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147 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

sizzle... sputter... *poof*

It makes me very sad to say so, but frankly this series just sputtered and died for me. I liked Paolini's 1st and 3rd books, and I thought the 2nd wasn't bad either. Book 4 was a huge.... huge... disappointment. And I was really looking forward to it! [FYI, this is coming from the girl who thought the scene where they pick Hrothgar for king was fascinating, lol!]

There are some high points. Like one... or maybe two. But lets put it this way: 8 hours of Eragon killing 5 thousand helpless soldiers with sorrow in his heart ...OR... Roran mooning about Katrina while slicing and dicing humans into convenient cubes. Then ohmygranniespanties the middle of the book happens (and it has trouble rivaling said item of riveting attire). Then 9 hours are spent tying up loose ends (un-imaginativly, incompletely, and unsatisfactorily). Then the end music plays... and I, at least, was left with the feeling you get on 4th of July when it rains. No fireworks this time around, folks!

I think this series had a lot of potential. Shame Paolini wrote a bit better at 14 than at 27.

Recommendations? Suzzane Collins' 'The Hunger Games', Rafael Sabatini's 'Captain Blood' or 'Scaramouche', Jonathan Stroud's 'Bartimaeus' Series. For more, see my reviews.

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40 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

The story fulls short

The story line does not follow the logical outcomes. It goes from being a fantasy story to a tragedy. The ending gives a feeling of no hope to change the future. Since his future was foretold and he was cursed by enemies. Paolini goes out of his way to write the ending that way. In doing so , he basically says there are no rider secrets, that his training was a waste of time, since the next rider doesn't have to have the training, He leaves an untrained young dragon in the hands of a rider that has not received the secrets of the riders and will never have that training.

He never answered the question of who the woman and girl was who received his blessing that he made such a large point of in the earlier books. No idea who Angela really is. No knowledge who the high level spy's are.

He tries to make an argument there is no higher beings , yet he believes the future is unchangeable and it is predetermined. Yet without a there being a higher level being; who determines what that future is?

While the other books offered promise of hope and love , this one gives nothing but despair and emptiness with no hope of the future.

Paolini showed his lack of maturity with the ending of this book.

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38 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Unsatisfying ending to this series

I'm curious to hear from other readers/listeners if they also feel like this isn't the end of the Inheritance series? Too many story lines were not completed, the woman with the scars (Eragon's mother???), Murtagh and Thorn (what happens to them???), Angela the herbalist (who is she and why does she know so much), who trains Arya with her new dragon, and many more.

I feel like Poalini left me hanging and unsatisfied. Or.. he plans another series of books to explain what he left unsaid. If that is indeed his plan it was poorly done. Overall I was engaged in the book until the last few chapters when everyone went off and cried.

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28 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Long book, Forced ending

The flow of this series has been very good until this book. I'm not sure what happened but it feels like the author lost inspiration. He tried to tie up story lines in a way that wasn't consistent with the world he had created. Other story lines he just left hanging. In my opinion an unfortunate ending to an otherwise enjoyable series.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Very Sad

I waited for this book for over 3 years. If I had known he would have done such a rushed job I could have waited another year or two! Not at all what I was expecting!!

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23 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Annoyed And So Disappointed...

I was so disappointed about this book, so EPICALLY disappointed. I am a big fan of books in general and I am an even bigger fan of fantasy books. I love the George R. R. Martin (despite his sadistic way of killing off characters). Tolkien, Terry Goodkind, etc. and after reading book one and book two of the Eragon series despite seeing some gaps in his story I saw growth and I thought to myself "This guy really will be great...." but then.... the travesty of book 3 came and then to add fuel to the fire book 4 came which did not in any way shape or form redeem the book for me.

The narration wasn't bad and I actually gave him an extra star for keeping me engaged throughout the scope of this really long book. I almost was going to call it pointless as well but that would have been too harsh besides, I leave that particular description to the third book. He did his accents well and simply worked with what was handed to him to the best of his abilities. I tip my hat to this dude for doing such a good job.

Now the story.... *clenches jaw purposely* Here is my contention.... The main antagonist's death... for someone so incredibly evil.... his death was just downright anticlimactic if you ask me. And then the lead up to the death was just plain annoying. I still stand by the thought (even more so than ever) that the third book served no purpose whatsoever and if the author had combined the 3rd and 4th book (whilst cutting out the useless fodder) this series would not have been such a let down. In fact the main reason this book gets such a negative review from me is because the series on a whole had so much potential. The books went like this for me:
Book 1.... Good
Book 2.... Excellent
Book 3.... Ok... Completely Irrelevant
Book 4.... *Annoyed* I can't believe I invested time and energy in this series.
I have never been this dissatisfied with an antagonist's since I listened to Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (I have yet to get the sour taste out of my mouth where that book is concerned). It didn't help that even after the story ended there was even more added fodder that don't get me wrong was great to know but was an OBVIOUS ploy to potentially add some more to this story in the future if the author so desires (I hope beyond hope he just lets this die unless he seriously improves his writing style). Oh by the way, I saw so many similarities to other things in other timeless fantasy works like Star Wars and LoTR that I found it a bit disturbing to be honest. I am however going to pretend that this was all a coincidence and not drop the rating down another star.

My ultimate belief is that this book should have been a trilogy and nothing more. The really wished and believed this book would have been great but in the word of another reviewer it was simply 'sizzle... sputter... *poof*'.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

An unfortunate disappointment

After waiting years for this conclusion to be published, it was a major disappointment. The only good thing to say about it was that the narrator did an outstanding job.

The story was horribly overblown. Paolini never missed a chance to use 100 words where 10 would have sufficed. But, the worst part was the incredibly disappointing ending. It is obvious that the author is young. He resorted to the prosaic comic book super hero ending where the super hero must sacrifice his own happiness for the good of all and give up any chance for love, family, friendship and a normal life.

As has been stated in other reviews, the ending also left a multitude of story threads dangling with no resolution. If this was merely a ploy to garner support for an outcry for a followup to resolve all these issues, he has lost me.

This was a weak and unnecessary ending to what could have been a powerful series.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Great series however....

The last book pretty much ruined it for me. It felt like he was trying too hard to tie things up and didn't do the story justice.

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Ignore the nay-sayers.

This is a great book and a good ending to an epic tale. The first book is my favorite, but this one is a close second.

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