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I remember reading a series consisting of three books a few years ago, maybe around 2010. The series was pretty new when I was reading it. It was set in your typical medieval fantasy world where magic is a thing. In the beginning a boy finds a dragon egg and the dragon hatches.

After some time they were starting to get involved into a war because dragons were extremely rare and the Big Bad Guy wanted to kill all dragons, except for his own so that he would be the most powerful warlord in existence.

Dragon Riders could use magic by uttering the elven language words for things. For example by saying "root" he could shape roots to entangle his opponents.

In later books he was fighting alongside elves, who were all pretty good when it came to using magic. He was studying there to prepare for the upcoming final fight. Some of them could even use magic without speaking words, which was quite the powerful ability in the book.

There was a side story about his brother going to war by ordinary means, without any magic or dragons. He was fighting in his home village against enemies and quickly became the leader of more and more people who were relying on him for safety.

Random things I remember:

  • whenever describing the main dragon the author would choose words that lead to an association with cats, like curling up to sleep, having a face similar in appearance to a cat, I think the dragon even purred at one point
  • elves were described as having cat-like eyes
  • I am pretty sure there were more instances where the author used cat-like words to describe people/dragons/creatures/... - but the dragon and the elves were the most prominent examples
  • the protagonist used a sword when fighting
  • his brother used a hammer

I've read the books in German. I think there was a film about this series, but the film was not very good in comparison with the books and for some reason I was convinced that they couldn't make a sequel and rely on anything in the books because they completely turned the story upside-down with a few important things. Also the bond between the protagonist and the dragon was not shown in such a detail as was possible in the books. I remember that I loved the first ~100 pages of the first book because it really showed how the newly hatched dragon, who was quickly growing, was getting accustomed to the protagonist.

Can you help me remember what the series was called?

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  • Do you know what year you may have read it?
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:05
  • @Edlothiad Not exactly. I think probably around 2010 +/- 3 years. The series was pretty new at that point.
    – Secespitus
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:14
  • That's pretty good!
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:16

1 Answer 1

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It sounds like Eragon by Christopher Paolini. Published in 2003 but it looks like the German translation wasn't published until 2009. The film was 2006.

  • Eragon finds a dragon egg and it hatches. He bonds with it and becomes a dragon rider.
  • Big Bad Galbatorix has his own dragon and had all the other riders killed.
  • There are elves.
  • There was a film that a lot of people didn't like very much.

I've only seen part of the film so don't know about the cat descriptions but the rest matches up well.

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  • 10
    An additional hint may be more instances of Cat: The book had a werecat, called Solembum, appearing. So, more sign of Cat-loving :).
    – Layna
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 9:58
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    The series is The Inheritance Cycle
    – Alith
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 10:04
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    Yep, I by reading the descriptions it is indeed Eragon, I read the books till the third one. And In the Eragon book there was a whole chapter of him hatching the egg and the dragon growing. Then in the movie it came out of its egg flew away and poof was adult. Shitty movie, great book series.
    – Lyrion
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 12:28
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    For those reading this question who haven't come across these books already, I cannot stress this enough: read the books, forget the movie. My sister was watching it on television one time and I literally walked out of the room after less than ten minutes and refused to watch any more.
    – anaximander
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 13:53
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    As I've grown, I've realized that yes, the Inheritance Cycle is incredibly derivative of Star Wars, LotR, and even to some extend Star Trek and/or the Chronicles of Narnia. Doesn't stop me from enjoying the fact that it's still a fun adventure... and from despising the screenwriter/director of that god-awful waste of Jeremy Iron's time.
    – tonysdg
    Commented Oct 4, 2017 at 18:52

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