Roran's boring story drawls on as usual, but to make up for it, Nasuada's story is really great and engaging, along with Eragon's of course. Although it really makes me angry when Paolini interrupts the best parts of the story to continue Roran's story. 

Saphira is just as interesting as ever, with her sassy attitude, sarcasm, and witty jokes. Her and Eragon's relationship is a great part of the series, and really contributes to the story. Comedic relief has been a part of her character for a while now, and she doesn't fail to keep that going during this time around as well.

The character development is truly just amazing in this series. From Nasuada to Murtagh and Murtagh to Thorn and Thorn to anyone else you pick, this is one thing Paolini got just right. And the relationships between the characters is something he also got great, except for of course Eragon and Arya, barely mentioning it, and then everything else is just bad towards the end. Roran and Katrina are ok, but nobody cares about them so it doesn't matter. It's actually mostly a bunch of whining from them about the baby, how it's not safe, things like that. What they fail to understand is that people HAVE IN FACT lived under Galbatorix's rule for a while now. It may not be ideal, but it's not like everyone is dying everywhere.

The writing at the end also feels a bit rushed, as if he was just trying to figure out how to fill up space the other 800 pages but realized he had to make this book readable without getting boring, so he quickly finished it up without putting much thought into it. One part of the ending is really a huge disappointment, though while the writing was bad and rushed, I found myself freaking out over how amazing the plot was.

This is it for the online review, wait until the print version comes out and read it there, and I'll probably post up the full one here as well to satisfy all you online readers as well.