I read an article about Eragon before I'd ever heard of it; apparently his parents were small-book publishers or something, and went around promoting his book heavily. I found this rampant nepotism and an example of how media success is not a meritocracy, but I decided I should read the book before I jumped to negative conclusions about it being a bad fantasy book whose success represents the triumph of luck & marketing - after all, maybe the dude was a prodigy. So I read it and.... it was a bad fantasy book: the writing was clearly immature & inexperienced, and the setting/plot practically plagiarized Tolkien in a number of places. The author is no Brandon Sanderson, to be sure. Even the Sword of Shannara pulp fantasy series is better.