Christopher Paolini on Murtagh’s Journey, Returning to the World of Eragon, and More
Photo: Lo Hunter
These days, it feels like fantasy books about dragons and dragon riders are a dime a dozen. (See also: Rebecca Yarros’s massively successful Empyrean series, Samantha Shannon’s critically acclaimed Roots of Chaos books, Rosaria Munda’s charming YA adventure Fireborne, and Naomi Novik’s sprawling Temeraire saga.) But that wasn’t always the case. Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle was positively groundbreaking in this genre space when it first hit shelves back in 2003, a fast-paced coming-of-age tale with plenty of adventure and genuine emotional stakes that essentially went on to reshape reader expectations about what this particular subgenre was meant to be and do. (An went on to influence a generation of books that followed it.)
Somehow, Eragon is turning twenty this year, an event that’s offering us all the opportunity to realize precisely how old we actually are, and reflect on the many ways the fantasy genre has grown and changed since the arrival of the Inheritance Cycle. But although the original four-book series concluded with 2011’s Inheritance, Paolini is far from finished with the world of Alagaësia.
This month marks the release of two new books from the beloved writer: Eragon: The Illustrated Edition, which takes readers back to where it all began, and Murtagh, a follow-up novel from the perspective of Eragon’s biggest rival as he embarks on a quest for redemption. Murtagh, unsurprisingly, is a much more mature sort of story, and one that will almost certainly stretch the boundaries of what readers expect from this universe.
We got the chance to chat with the one and only Christopher Paolini himself about his long-awaited return to the world of the Inheritance Cycle, why he chose to focus this story on Murtagh, the demands of writing two successful series, and more.
Paste: So, I guess I should start with the obvious — why was now the time for you to return to the Inheritance Cycle universe?
Christopher Paolini: I’ve always intended to write more books set in the World of Eragon. However, after finishing the Cycle, I needed a break. I’d spent over a decade doing nothing but writing to deadlines, touring, and generally working. That, and I really wanted to write other types of stories.
So, I created the Fractalverse (my science fiction universe), and wrote and published To Sleep in a Sea of Stars and its prequel, Fractal Noise. Unfortunately, To Sleep took way longer to write than I expected, which is why it’s taken me so many years to return to the World of Eragon.
Also, I won’t lie: the fact that this year is the twentieth-year anniversary of the hardcover publication of Eragon was pretty good motivation as well.
Paste: I’ve read some other interviews you’ve given on this subject, and it doesn’t sound as though Murtagh was necessarily the story that was supposed to come next in this saga. Why did it?
Paolini: When I started looking at the story/book that I originally intended to be Book V, I realized that I would have to do way too much scene-setting and explaining in order to get readers up to speed. Murtagh helps address that issue.