Following the wake of an enormous, international success with his first book, Eragon, fantasy author Christopher Paolini has struggled to maintain the hype for the remaining three books of his series. Having written the first draft of Eragon at the tender age of 15, Paolini’s genius seems irreproachable, although many fans had already abandoned the series by the time his second book, Eldest, was released in 2005. As for the series’ third installment released in 2008, Brisingr, I had abstained from reading it after a friend told me that he...

Veteran choir singers know all too well that the presence of “too many sopranos” is a familiar dilemma to coed groups the world over. Since most men are not necessarily so inclined to participate in choir, this problem often arises from having too many women. Puget Sound’s joint venture of the School of Music and the Theater department deals with a choir of a different caliber: the Heavenly Chorus. The first act of this comic opera begins when four Divas (sopranos) ascend to Heaven, only to find that there is...