"And for you, Jeod, your gift is not from me, but from Saphira. She has agreed to let you fly on her back for an hour or two."

Eragon, Brisingr, pg 291.

As can be surmised, I have enjoyed reading Brisingr (currently on page 432.) However, I have long since given up thinking of Jeod as CP's rather flat character. For me, he'll always be the sardonic, wry, ironic writer, with an anecdote up his sleeve about his misadventures with Brom, Helem, Goole, and other characters from the Inheritance series. I would like to think that a number of my readers agree, but that's just be guessing.

Now, the above quote simply inspired this little tale. Something about it just made me laugh. So, in this spirit, the Adventures of Brom and Jeod makes yet one more sally into the midst of Alagesia (I am considering updating the version in the Belgariad, as well as moving it to that canon.)

Enjoy!

If I have learned one thing on my assorted misadventures- and, I must assure my readers, I have learned quite a few- it is to never trust anyone who has been proclaimed a great hero of whatever country I happen to be staying in. They're always over rated, over pampered scoundrels, who believe that they have a unique right to bully their supposed inferiors orders around, just because they have a big, shiny sword and a talent for killing monsters, combined with the sort of looks that make elf maids swoon en masse. They're normally bastards too.

At least, this is what I said about Eragon, in tones of somewhat surprising loudness, after he left our tent.

"What's that, my beautiful Teirm rose?" my dear lady wife asked.

"And he's just got all our goddamned biscuits. Does he know how much they cost? And how uncommon they are?" I slumped down onto the bed. "I even gave him that book."

"Well, seeing as we've now got about ten copies, I see no reason to bother."

Now, you must understand, my dear lady Helen is a woman of many incredible qualities. She can dance the polka like no one's business, make an excellent chicken a la Elven, and can even cook, but what she cannot do well is get to the bottom of a man's problems. Oh, that and make it look like she loves me in the presence of strangers. She tries, bless her, she tries, but she just looks like a cold "hussy", as I understand chroniclers of our lives have been calling her. Sometimes, I can't tell which of these shortcomings are worse.

"No, Helen, look. It isn't about biscuits. Although, come to think of it, it sort of is about biscuits, but that's by the by. The main thing is that I CAN'T STAND HEIGHTS!"

There was a moment of silence.

"You can't stand heights?" Helen took the tone with me that seems to symbolise salad for breakfast instead of bacon, and long walks to try and prevent me becoming shaped like, as she put it a trifle frankly, a balloon. "But that's ridiculous!"

"How so?" asks I.

"Well, you went in Ellesmera, which was completely above the ground in their tree houses!"

"No, my dear, that was Lothlorien." This was a small, but important description to make. "They may look the same, sound the same, contain the same people-" I shuddered at the memories of both Vanir, curse him, and Haldir, curse him too. "-but they are technically different geographic areas on the map. I stayed in the low down parts of Ellesmera."

"And there were those mountains near Carvahall."

"Indeed there were. However, I was too busy running from a vertically challenged egomaniac to really take in the terror of accidentally falling off a cliff edge. Well, the thing it, I really don't like heights. Despise them, in fact. Especially after that thing on the Dragon's Wing."

Helen nodded, with an expression of dawning comprehension on her face.

My mind was cast back to the warm evening a couple of months ago when I was to be found upon the deck of that cursed ship, deep in argument with one of the sailors.

"So, you're telling me that you can't get a ballista to move round to the rear of our ship to try and shoot those devils behind us?" I asked petulantly, pointing at the Imperial Naval ships on our tail.

The man shook his head.

"Why the hell not?"

He muttered something about "plot", and walked away.

"Aren't you supposed to be trained sailors or something?" I complained bitterly to the heavens, and then turned on my heel. I wished that I had some sort of big black cloak to toss over one shoulder dramatically and a cane to grip in one hand. Then I remembered that I had such things in my cabin, and I rushed to get them.

Unfortunately, this led to me managing to trip on a length of rope, and go toppling over the side of the ship. Somehow, I managed to grab onto a length of wood protruding from the side of the ship, and gripped onto it feverishly, teeth gritted, thews corded, and other such phrases used by the weird chronicler fellow who I'll be describing in a few moments.

Hanging thus, I had the great fortune (or so I thought) to be right in front of a porthole. Even better, it was an open one. Great, thinks I, I can shout in and get some help. So I did.

"Come here, quick!" I cried. "I need some help over here!" And other words to that effect.

The first person to arrive did so in a disappointingly calm, laid back way. "Well, good morning to you," he said cheerfully.

"Hello," I said in return. "Now, if you would excuse me, I would really appreciate some help here. You see-"

"Is that some kind of city thing you're doing out there, boy?"

I stared at him. "Well, actually-"

"Hey, come over here, Roran, come here quick! There's this guy doing this thing outside my porthole!"

Roran, who turned out to be an especially moronic looking individual, and didn't disappoint in that regard, slouched over. "I'll be!" he said, after a moment's glance.

How he came to be such a great commander of infantry remains a mystery to this day.

"Yes, you will be," I said diplomatically. "Now, could you please-"

They both slouched off, the novelty fast draining from seeing a man hanging into their porthole.

I sighed, beginning to curse myself for not predicting something of this nature, and settled down on gripping the rope.

Eventually, a little girl wondered over. I roused myself, knowing that this could be the last chance that I'll get. "Hey, kid. Come over here."

She did so. "Ow," she said, and made a sympathetic wince.

I made a world weary sort of chuckle. "Yes, ow," I said. "Now, could you get your mother to come here right away and help out?"

"Hey, mister, you're hanging near that porthole."

"Yes, I know."

She wondered off too.

To my immense surprise, she actually did return with her mother. "Now, Laurena here's just been telling me the most incredible stories," she said, with a tinkling little laugh that set my nerves on edge. "Now, Mister Jeod, it's been real nice of you showing her your gymnastic talents, but enough's enough, I think, it may give the kids Ideas and all that, and-" She took one look at my current state.

"Holy hell! You're upside down!" she shrieked.

"It really hurts, I muttered."

"I bet it does. I'll get you some help."

"But-"

Unfortunately, this help came in the form of her husband, who turned out to be the village lawyer. "Now, Mister Jeod," said he, settling his glasses on his nose, "you do realise that this is technically trespassing upon the property of the Empire in the first place."

At this point I shot him. Actually, I didn't. I just made that up. What actually happened was that they dragged me in, and I acquired my phobia. The worst thing was that I didn't even get to meet any attractive nurses putting a lot of kind and tender care into my every need.

Helen nodded. "But your eyes misted over with tears," she said, "indicating your immense gratitude to Eragon."

"No, no, you don't understand. Those were tears as in aggrieved ones. That's just what that strange chronicler guy uses."

"The chronicler?" Helen thought for a moment. "D'you mean that man in the black doublet and trousers with those spectacles who keeps wondering around with a quill and parchment?"

I nodded.

"Pale skinned and slightly weak looking?"

"The very same."

"So, you've seen his writing too?"

I nodded. "It really is very strange. It appears to be concerning me, you, the dragon riders, Brom, the new rider, the dwarves, the elven princess who Brom almost hit it off with, the elven princess's boyfriend, and loads of other people. But Brom doesn't even hit it off with the elven princess! That's ridiculous."

"I think that it's the prose style which is the greater cause for concern here."

I nodded grimly. "I got him drunk and had a glance. He appears to take whole pages on describing Arya's highlights in her hair, or what a sunset looks like. And he doesn't even include my marvellously entertaining account of all my assorted misadventures!"

Helen gave me another one of her looks.

"All right," I said, "and he doesn't include your moments when you actually love me either."

The look softened noticeably.

"You know," she said a few moments later, "I think that you had best get it over with quite quickly."

"Oh yes?"

She nodded. "Otherwise it'll hang over."

"Well, there's nothing I don't know about those," I quipped, before suddenly remembering to Helen that I had long been pretending to be a sober, teetotaller, with a complete aversion to toilet humour. Oh well.

So, I smiled, donned my hat in a jaunty angle, and strode off towards Saphira's enclosure. Get it over with, I told myself. Get it done.

Well, what can I say other than that it was the high point of my life. After not studiously not looking down, I got to really enjoy swooping and diving around the skies on dragon back, diving through clouds, and ducking under birds and arrows (we almost landed in the wrong encampment on the way home.) All in all, it just goes to show something.

And in that nice, slightly indefinite note, the story ends, and I get to tell you about my impressions of Brisingr. (Spoilers ahead.)

I have to say that it has improved in some ways, and gone backwards in others.

On the good side, we see less of the excesses of his purple prose style. Descriptions are restrained, and we even get occasional good word choice. A number of characters are also fleshed out, and are emphatically not Eragon's servants (Nasuada, notably.)

On the other hand, we do receive some quite awful descriptions (notably the somewhat homoerotic one at the beginning where bruises are compared by Eragon and Roran.) Unnecessary parts of world building are bolted on- witness the Dwarf Presidential-sorry, royal- Elections- and one could actually be construed as offensive. (The black tribes appear out of nowhere, and are pretty much portrayed as rich, bling loving gangsters who slit their wrists all the time.) Some characters change utterly- Orrin now closely resembles the normal fantasy Brit Twit, and Eragon's style of speech alters somewhat.

My biggest personal quibble is that the good characters are… well, too uber. Roran, for example, despite being described repeatedly as the more human of the cousins Shadeslayer, kills almost two hundred crack Imperial troops on his own (and adapts remarkably quickly to mounted combat.) Eragon defeats seven elite assassins without taking any real damage, and punches someone about thirty feet. (And yet still thinks of himself as vulnerable!) And Saphira suddenly becomes a homicidal maniac. I find it very hard to sympathise with characters who really can right any wrong without any apparent effort (partly due to immense skillz, and partly because their enemies are mostly stupid and incompetent.)

So, overall, what do I think of Brisingr? Well, simply put, a missed opportunity. Paolini has obviously tried to address some of the criticisms- characters do get fleshed out, Arya is not directly described as wearing leather (although another female character is, bringing along the uncomfortable conclusion that all good soldier women must have leather on), and descriptions are more restrained. But there are still many bad points. Word choice is still poor (Roran gets "poked" in the back when he falls hard on some rocks.) Dialogue still wavers, as does character. And, all too often, the villains display a total lack of brain power. (Soldiers don't attack Eragon on sight, or even have sentries watching what they were meant to be guarding, for example.) So, overall, three stars. It was, after all, a reasonably enjoyable fantasy adventure.