But his decision, presumably approved by his editors, to extend the trilogy to four books has given his propensity for self-indulgence free rein. The actual plot here warrants perhaps 250-300 pages. The rest is spent in what can only be described as showing off. He loves flaunting his vocabulary in lengthy, unnecessary descriptions: in one scene, for instance, where a bunch of men are ringing bells, he divides them in two just so that he can describe half of them "producing a dolorous cacophony of notes" while the other half "cause iron tongues to crash against iron throats and emit a mournful clamor." He continues to include the sophomore-dorm-level philosophical discourses that run to dozens of pages, and he seems incapable of doing a bit of research without foisting it all on the reader: for example, his description of the forging of a sword takes up an entire 16-page chapter. Paolini is a very good writer, and has the talent to be a great one -- all he needs is the discipline.