Hardcover, 860 pages
English language
Published Dec. 28, 2011 by Random House.
The young Dragon Rider Eragon must finally confront the evil king Galbatorix to free Alagaesia from his rule once and for all.
For what it is, its a decent conclusion to the series. I enjoyed it, but im happy its over. Its more polished than the previous books, but here and there it felt as if the author was trying too hard.
Content warning Mild spoiler of ending trope
The melancholy "he saved the world for all but himself" trope is so overdone. It felt like Paolini had a certain ending in mind and fought against his own worldbuilding to get there. It did not have to end that way. And the meaninglessness made the less-than-happy ending that much more unbearable. I'll admit that I'm biased toward happy endings. I'm a hopeless romantic. But I can still appreciate a melancholy ending if it's narratively satisfying. Paolini tried to do that, but he failed to convince me that it was the only solution so it fell flat.
I did find a nice fanfic alt ending. Reads like fanfic - dialog voice isn't quite right and development is somewhat lacking, but the plot is so much better and more believable than the original, especially if you read between the lines and make the connections that the fanfic author fails to make explicitly: m.fanfiction.net/s/7558100/1/
This is my favorite book in the entire series. The ending is pretty predictable and leaves me at least wanting another book. Still it's one of my favorites.
