Month: September 2022

This book was huge back in 2006 when I first picked it up. I got WAY into it. I’d been removed from reading big fantasy novels for a while so it was a good primer for getting me back into the genre.

Someone pointed out to me that it was the plot of Star Wars with dragons, and that’s accurate, even if I didn’t want it to be at the time. You can give it a break on the grounds that the dude was 15 when he wrote the first one, and got the others done in his late 20s. I sure wouldn’t want anyone to read my stuff from back then, but I would also have taken the half-a-million dollars that came with it in a heartbeat, so no judgment there.

ERAGON was kind of like Harry Potter in the sense that it got a lot of normies into a genre that they might not have otherwise messed around with, and created a demand for more. In the end that benefits writers and readers. That’s a good thing. There are still people that really loved the series (I still have fond memories of reading the first two).

Whether it holds up now is less relevant than the space it created for more of us to generate and enjoy books of the same genre.

Audible had this on sale last week and I grabbed it for my kids, largely on the comparison to ERAGON, among other things.

Haven’t read it yet, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

I ain’t even finished listening to all the books I bought on the last sale, ugh.

I picked up about a dozen more. Some are audiobooks of print books that I’ve already read, like SAKURA. I also grabbed a copy of WITCHY EYE for my wife, and some nonfiction as one does. (There was even a biography on Jefferson Davis and I realized I knew nothing about the dude other than he was the Confederate president.)

Yesterday I finished reading TABOO, by the same guy who wrote HATE CRIME HOAX. Very Thomas Sowell-esque intellectual writings.

Anyway, this week I’m going to read FRAUD AND FICTION, the JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS, and YAMADA MONOGATARI.

For reports on these books, make sure you follow the Radcracker Podcast.

Total Chad novel. Brian’s out in the wilderness, homeschooling himself while he eats off the land, dreaming about a girl he hasn’t met yet, but whose father approves of him because he’s shown he can live in the wild.

Injured dog finds Brian in the middle of the night. Through knowledge gained by experience and reading, he disregards things that society generally accepts as true and ends up treating the dog in a way that works. The dog is happy and loyal.

Then Brian uses his powers of deduction to figure that the dog was attacked by–most likely–a bear. It’s also a breed of dog popular among the Creek Indians, for companionship and limited work. He heads over to where they live to return their dog.

But…tragedy! The local Creek family, the Smallhorns, have also been killed by the bear, the same bear that attacked the dog. Husband, wife, two small children…just terrible. The only survivor is Attractive Teenaged Daughter Susan, who has only heard of Brian, but never met him.

Brian finds her. Rescues her. Gives her fancy gifts…what, roses and chocolates? No no no, even better, the two things women desire above all else: a competent man and a few hours of sleep. They find her short-wave radio and call for help. Rangers and Mounties show up to get Susan to safety. Before she parts ways with him, he says “Next time we meet up, let’s talk feelings.”

And she’s like “Definitely.”

Now that Female Love Interest is secured, it’s time to hunt some bear. Because it’s personal, baby. Mud up that face, grab your bow and arrows.

Dog jumps in on the action. Brian finds the bear’s tracks and follows them for a while. Then…slowly…he starts to cover the same ground again…and he realizes…the bear is hunting him.

I’ll save the ending for you. Really you shouldn’t have even read this far. Just go read the book. Read the whole series. Read everything Paulsen wrote about the outdoors. Everything else sucks, this does not.

You should be Chad-maxxing on books.