Christopher Paolini, the writer of Eragon isn't a GOOD writer, he is just a writer.
He was homeschooled at the expense of his parents, who own the publishing company THAT PUBLISHED Eragon in the first place. They didn't give it some time to read over what he wrote because they were his parents and the editors who say it was crappy would have gotten fired the next day.
Its book is really a Star Wars knock-off with a LOTR world. It starts off with Eragon's farm getting turned to dust and he goes meets the storyteller who gave him the rock, which is the egg.
Oh wait. Star Wars IV did this. Except it was Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke after Luke left his abusive "parents".
Also, he picks up an unconcious woman and saves her, same with how Luke finds Leila.
Eventually, it continues to an empire where the first trainer gets killed. Like how Obi Wan dies to Darth Vader. Then he seeks guidance from another Dragon Rider, except he is an Elf; not a 2 foot Jedi master.
As for the races, it was completely derived from the world of LOTR. But I don't blame him there, D/D and some other worlds copied that idealism, but at least they had some success. Even Wc3 was more successful, and its lore according to Root was crap.
Next, real dragons don't evolve from little to large in minutes. That takes hundreds to thousands of years to happen, Eragon would have been dead before the story begun. And he doesn't even explain how it happens.
Oh and don't get me started with that piece of shit movie. Bad acting, commas = periods in speech, Saphira has feathers (when the book clearly stated what Saphira's scales and wings are made from). bad costumes, more Star Wars cliches, and a more retarded storyline. No wonder why it got 21% at Rotten Tomatoes. Hell, Dream_walker reads this book, and even he hated the movie.
The game was bullshit too; it was really a crappier version of the LOTR: Return of the King, and I enjoyed that game as a rental.
I for one would have gone back in time and beat Paolini with a stick. Seriously, its not hard to come up with a non-derivative storyline, Mr. Neo-Bauman (ebaumsworld reference). I would have to say that Eragon is really just a crappy fan-fic with made up people.