** spoiler alert ** 
 I freely admit that after the stinking messes that were "Eldest" and "Brisingr," I expected the grand finale of the Inheritance series to be... another stinking mess. But actually, Christopher Paolini's fourth fantasy novel isn't nearly as bad. It's still riddled with pointless subplots, confusingly drawn-out action scenes, and a supremely disappointing boss battle... but it doesn't make me want to throw the green tome out the window. 
 Eragon, Arya and Roran are all fighting battles for the Varden, taking over various cities so the rebels can... uh, resupply before people start defecting. When Eragon isn't doing that, he's busy learning how to fight effectively with a sword, trying to talk to Glaedr, and hanging around when one of the Palancar women has her baby. Yeah, you can probably tell that not a lot of stuff actually happens in the first half. 
 But as the Varden approach Uru'baen, Galbatorix strikes first by kidnapping Nasuada... which has surprisingly little effect. With no possible way of defeating the king, Eragon must travel to the onetime home of the Dragonriders, and uncover a shocking secret that may change the world. But that is only if he can defeat Galbatorix -- and unknown to the Varden, Galbatorix has gained the greatest power in the world... 
 One of the biggest problems with "Inheritance" is that Paolini knows as much about plotting a book as Stephenie Meyer does -- the first half is just the characters bouncing around doing random stuff, just like in "Brisingr." The entire Helgrind invasion, the birth and healing of Elain's baby, storytime with Angela, sword practice with the elves... do ANY of these subplots have a point? Nope! 
 However, Paolini's descriptive writing has improved vastly over the last few years -- his dialogue has become more organic, and his descriptions aren't as purple (if he does wax TOO eloquent about how pretty flying blood is). Unfortunately, he still writes unintentionally hilarious stuff, such as Angela stabbing people with three-foot-long wool combs, or an elf who turned his body into a nuclear BOMB (complete with fallout!). The moments that are MEANT to be funny (like Angela's "Monty Python" rabbit) are not. 
 And it's painfully obvious that Paolini was making up this story as he went along, because he writes in a bunch of stuff that was never even foreshadowed in the last three books. The Dauthdaert, the second-in-command villain and even Galbatorix's motivations are all vitally important to the plot, but are just tossed in almost carelessly. 
 And the climactic "Return of the Jedi" battle is just horrible -- it mostly consists of people standing around talking, and the lamest villain dispatch since "the power of love." As for the ending, if you've seen "Return of the King" then you have a pretty good idea of what happens here. Except "Inheritance" has sequel bait, and a rather melodramatic approach (what, they have dragons but can't VISIT?). 
 But Paolini does do a good job of writing Eragon -- he's a lot less sociopathic than in "Brisingr," and you do feel genuine sympathy for him despite his godlike Sue powers. Galbatorix is FINALLY given some dimension, personality and presence, and he is genuinely scary. On the other hand, Roran is a creep (he gleefully threatens to disfigure and/or kill young women for being loyal to their master) who fades in and out of the story, and Arya remains paper-thin. 
 "Inheritance" is a pretty bad book, but it is a vast improvement over Paolini's last two novels -- unintentionally silly, overblown and filled with padding, but not quite enough to be offensive.