Fantasy, violence, and adventure; 3 elements in stories that when combined together, result in a wondrously written novel that attracts readers and keeps them hooked on. Those 3 elements are shown in Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance. As the last book of his Inheritance series, Paolini certainly finishes it off with a bang. The ideas of dragons and magic are used in many fantasy novels. It makes idea of using dragons and magic in a fantasy novel seem mainstream but, Paolini adds a twist to these ideas. By doing this, he transforms his book, Inheritance, and the rest of his series from an average fantasy with dragons and magic into something clearly out of the ordinary. Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance is a must read. It takes readers into an adventurous journey in Paolini’s world and holds on to them until they finish the story.

As a reader of this story, I would recommend this book to anyone from 5th grade up. Inheritance has the adventure and action to keep anyone interested and yearning to know more. As soon as you read half of the first page, you become perplexed by the action and will begin wanting to find out what happens next. Does he survive? Is he victorious? Inheritance is almost like a mystery. Questions begin popping randomly into your mind out of curiosity as you read through the story. Why does he do this? How did that happen? These questions keep you reading on, anxious to discover the hidden answer. You won’t go a minute bored reading Inheritance. As the New York Times stated in a review of this book, “An authentic work of great talent.”

Inheritance is a fantasy novel. When most people hear the word fantasy, the first few things that pop into their heads are royalty, dragons, magic, and other magical things that exist in fantasy. Inheritance does consist of royalty, dragons, and magic but, it’s not the same as the others. It’s different. One of the many different things is the way magic is used in Inheritance. In his novel, Paolini has given certain characters the ability to use magic. The catch is, to use magic; the character must say a phrase in a certain ancient language to summon spells. This ancient language was thought up by Paolini himself. It has its own words, accents, spellings and grammar. Paolini also made up 2 other languages his book, one being the language of dwarfs and the other being the language of Urgals (a creature in Inheritance). Making up a language isn’t an easy task, and consumes a ton of time and effort to perfect. Instead of writing a mainstream fantasy novel, Paolini incorporated new ideas along with his story that made his story special, if not one of a kind. As quoted from The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Inheritance was “A rich, sophisticated novel.”

“A natural storyteller, Paolini has embarked on something grand,” stated the Los Angeles Times. I couldn’t agree more. He has written his story with so much detail and description; you can picture every single event clearly without much thought. As you read, the images move through your mind, like a movie. The transitions are smooth and help the flow of images pass through your mind with ease. If not, the flow of images would be slow and blocky. That would make it hard for the reader to connect the images and “see” the scene being painted.

Inheritance is a fantasy book like no other. With its own magical languages and cultures, it is unique and new to the fantasy genre. Instead of the same old same old things you get in a fantasy novel, Inheritance brings you a world of new wonders, all waiting for you to read.