first off, don't ask for opinions and then ask people to sumarize them. that's just rude.

as for being too hard on the books, no, if anything you weren't hard enough. keep in mind, this kid wrote these books by taking everything he liked from other works and combining them into something new.

eragon is Star Wars with a liberal helping of Dragon Riders of Pern, Dune, Dragonlance, and Lord of the Rings.

its not 'derivative', its a blatant rip off work.

you can complain that robert jordan is just cashing in on the tolkein world building exercise by writing a 12 volume version of the silmarillion, but at least some of that world building is slightly original. the kid who wrote eragon's never had an original thought in his life.