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Knowing when to quit (reading, that is)

I don’t abandon books easily; for the most part, if I start reading something, I eventually finish it, even if it takes me a while. I can think of two that I dropped last year out of the 135 or so I started, and I’ve lost one this year out of the 40 or so I’ve taken a stab at.

All of this goes to support my contention that it means something that I’m considering abandoning Christopher Paolini’s Eragon. For those of you who don’t know, Paolini began this book when he 15 (he’s now 18). It’s being hailed by many as an excellent work, but as of halfway through I’m thoroughly underwhelmed. The whole thing is just so predictable and clichéd - I’ve read fanfic that’s better written and more absorbing. And then there’s the whole Mary Sue issue…. From the very beginning of the book, Eragon is just too much - he’s too good at everything (he’s not quite full-grown, but he’s still the only one in the village who can successfully hunt in the forbidding mountains, that sort of thing). It’s immature, and it’s rapidly becoming more than just a little irritating. The jury’s still out on whether it’ll grate on me enough to stop reading entirely, but unless something dramatic changes you can bet I won’t be picking up Paolini’s (somewhat literal) sophomore effort.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the “but he’s just a kid” argument - if he’s published, then he gets to meet the same standards of quality that everybody else does. There are good reasons for my avoidance of large swaths of the fantasy and scifi books published every year; unfortunately, it looks like Paolini’s a prime example of several of ‘em.