Spoilery Book Reviews

Murtagh by Christopher Paolini

Back of the book

The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society.

Throughout the land, hushed voices whisper of a brittle ground and a faint scent of brimstone in the air – and Murtagh senses that something wicked lurks in the shadows of Alagaësia. So begins an epic journey into the unknown, as Murtagh and Thorn must find and outwit a witch veiled in mystery.

My thoughts.

If I were to give this a one word review it would be: disappointment.

I thought for the beginning portion I was just tired of fantasy from slogging through Inheritance, but as I got further into the book, I realised it was the story itself. The pacing in this novel was terrible. It was very slow to get to the action and once in the crux of it, dragged again with long torture scenes and Murtagh and Thorn in another hopeless situation. I'll get into my gripes about the plot in another paragraph.

I was really looking forward to exploring Murtagh as a character, his thoughts and memories, emotions and morals. In the original series I felt Murtagh was a very deep character, with his layers of trauma, trying to do what was right in the worst circumstances. Actively trying to change himself to be a free man. Murtagh came across...flat and underdeveloped. It was as if Paolini had only a surface level understanding of Murtagh while he tried to write about him. At first I was hungry for the flashback snippets we got, Murtagh's POV of events we already knew about. Further on, the flashbacks seemed out of place, fillers, and did not fit well into the story. If Paolini wanted to detail Murtagh's past, he should have set the book during that time, or found a better way to segue together past, present and future. The way the flashbacks and dreams were arranged felt clumsy, janky and purposeless other than to give readers more content. It did not make for good reading and I would have preferred to leave a little more mystery on Murtaghs' experiences than the way Paolini wrote them.

The plot suffered. As a character driven story, Murtagh did not grow. Yes, his name changed vaguely, minutely, but we are made aware this is a normal occurrence during one's life. Especially during times of change or introspection. Two defining moments for me, Murtagh renaming his sword and Thorn entering a cave, were overshadowed by the other events happening at that time. Both of those events did not get the focus they deserved, especially Murtagh renaming his sword, wedged in between the quest for him chasing Bachel. Other writing choices also had me pausing. Some phrases were trying too hard to be clever and came off confusing, or sounding dumber than using simple phrasing. I never had any gripes with Paolini's writing style previously, so for over a decade to pass and his writing to come out less-than... was very unexpected.

Now a paragraph of unrelated hiccups that bothered me: Murtagh daydreams for Nasuada the whole novel and of course it goes absolutely nowhere. Given Paolini's track record at writing romance (NONE) I hold out zero hope of anything occurring between them. Paolini pretends to keep some mystery by never writing the words that Azrugul is a dragon but we all know it. I hate that this book spent so long floundering around to just set up plot points for further books. I wanted it to be about Murtagh, instead it's a cheap, long, dreadful ploy to sell many more books. Lastly, Thorn becomes a non-character for half or more of the book. Half the reason people love the series is for dragons so for the main dragon to be notably absent for what feels like half the novel is yet another disappointment.

To conclude, this book ruined Murtagh and Thorn for me. Before, they were mysterious and unknown, now they are known and boring. I really struggled to read this book, stopped partway, started and finished The Kiss Quotient, before returning just to be able to write a conclusive review. Stupidly, I usually always hold out that tiny bit of hope that a book will get better which means I rarely DNF. I seriously considered not reading the end of Murtagh. I don't recommend a read, even for fans of the series, and won't plan on reading the sequels, of which I'm sure there will be.

TL:DR

Disappointing. Paolini, please don't write more. Murtagh and Thorn's stories are better left as fanfiction fodder than canon bullshit.