I also appreciated the fleshing out of his dwarves as an actual culture, the fact he didn't just go full boring copy and replaced orcs as a villain with another race was also cool. The fact that there was actual magic racism that got overcome towards the end was really nice too.
But all in all, its a book series I have had zero inclination to go back and re-read, and I do that with series I've fallen in love with. One I'm doing it with right now is Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erickson, which is absolutely phenomenal and is the best modern fantasy work, period.
Its got the attention to detail of Game of Thrones, its got grimness in it, its got significant empires duking it out, its got magic and high fantasy, but also complex political aspects. Erickson is an anthropologist and he's a good one at that, so he understands cultures to an extreme.
If you're looking for not just a good series to read, but probably the greatest of the modern era of fantasy, read Malazan. It is an absolutely phenomenal read.
I read about 100 pages of eragon in 2007, I just think the cover was good