[MC] I don't have enough of a voice to do this today, but [MC] you all know who that is. [Christopher] Thanks for the introduction! [Audience Applause and Cheering] And my deepest apologies for taking so long to get here. I know I take a while to write my books, but I try not to make a habit of taking a long time to get to my events. The way it used to work with book tours back in ye olden days is, the publisher would arrange for a black car to pick you up at an appointed time. So all I had to do was make sure I was down in the lobby at the appointed time. And if I was five minutes late, it was okay. Well now in this brave new world of rideshare, what it says on my schedule is, make sure you're out the door at, in this case, 4:00 p.m. With the taxi or rideshare app of your choice, give us the receipt afterward. So 4:00 p.m., okay, I can do that. Well 4:00 p.m. rolls around and it turns out that in Akron, Ohio, it takes about 11 minutes to get an Uber. Okay, that's still plenty of time to get here from over by the airport. So I get the Uber, and it was the fastest one I could get. And then I had to have a business call regarding the House of Mouse. So I'm having my business call, and I'm sort of not tracking what's going on. And then I look down at my phone, and I realize that it said that the Uber was four minutes away for 10 minutes. [Audience Member] Oh no. So I zoom in on the map, and he's sitting in the Target parking lot. Apparently he had to get some snack. [Audience Laughing] He had a Slurpee when he showed up. [Audience Laughing] His name was Vlad. [Audience Laughing] But he got me here. [Audience Laughing] Anyway, and I'm very, very happy to be here. Since we are starting a little bit late, I'm going to do a slightly different presentation than I normally do. As most of you may know, I've been doing this for a fairly long time at this point, over 20 years. And I've been giving these presentations since I was 17, which means when it comes to talking about Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle, I have this extremely well-practiced, well-polished presentation with perfect little jokes sprinkled in about every 30 seconds that will have you laughing in your seat. And that is not the presentation you're getting today. [Audience member] Awwww. [Audience Laughter] That said, if you happen to ask a question that triggers one of those pre-programmed answers from that presentation, you'll see me kick into, oh, that's answer number 37, subsection B. Initiate joke sequence. [Audience Laughing] Can you tell I enjoy doing this? Yes, I do. So why am I here? Well, we've got a beautiful Deluxe Edition of Murtagh. [Audience Applause and Chearing] For... For those of you who don't know, we actually have done deluxe editions for all the books in the Inheritance Cycle. Random House was sort of the first one to start doing this back in the days, although back then we didn't have the tech to do these fancy sprayed edges. [Audience Member] Yes! [Audience Member] It's so pretty. It is so pretty. Now, the thing is, is when I started writing the Inheritance Cycle, I built up all this extra material, world-building material. So there was language stuff, and there was historical stuff, and when Random House came to me and said, "We want to do a deluxe edition for Eragon," I was like, "Awesome. I've got stuff. Here, let me shovel this over to you. Make use of it." And they did. And we did that for Eragon and Eldest, and sometimes I would write something a little bit new for the deluxe editions, but mostly I just reused stuff that I had already built up. Well, by the time we got through Inheritance, I'd used up all the extra material. And these days, as the father... as the father of two young children, I don't have time to be writing extra material. So when Random House had deluxe edition... I said, "I don't have anything!" They said, "It's fine, fine. We'll do sprayed edges. We'll do some foil on the cover. It'll be pretty. You don't have to do anything. Relax." Well, that wasn't good enough for my fans. So back in the early part of this year, I wrote two extra chapters for the deluxe edition, which by the way, is the first time I've ever written original fiction for a deluxe edition. Well, actually, that's not true. But I've never... I've only done small bits before. This is the first time it's been something substantial. And I did five new pieces of art for the book. You may not know this, but I've done pretty much all of the interior art for the books myself over the years. I really enjoy drawing and painting. And one of the big ones I did, as many of you probably have already noticed, is we finally have a world map! [Audience Chearing and Clapping] To be clear... I have to talk about this map a little bit. Now, I don't know if you know this, but I'm a fantasy fan, and I really like maps. [Audience member laughing] Some of you might feel the same way. In fact, I remember when I met R. A. Salvatore, I had noticed that in some of his maps, some of his books, his maps were drawn by someone called Shelly Shapiro. And this stuck in my head, because my edition of Lord of the Rings has maps drawn by Shelly Shapiro. And I mentioned that to him. And he said, "Oh, yes, she's my editor!" [Audience Member] Woah! I was like, "Please tell her that I'm a big fan of her work." Anyway, back in the day, when I was starting Eragon, I didn't draw a map, because I had the theory that a well-written book should not need a map in order for readers to understand what is going on and where you are. I still stand by this theory. The problem was, as I was writing the book, I, the author, was getting lost in my own world. [Audience Laughing] So halfway through the book, I drew half the map, and then realized I was running out of space later on and drew the other half of the map. And since I didn't want to spend a whole week drawing the other half of the map, like I had with the first half, I just said, "Okay, forest, mountains." [Audience member laughing] You know, because I was moving so fast, though, those mountains were like ten times bigger than the other ones. And so I stopped and looked at it and went, "Welllll... What if they were?" [Audience Laughing] "It would take some magic, but But what if they were?" Anyway... I put off drawing this world map for a very long time because: (a) I wanted to do it right, and (b) I knew that if I did it, it would lock me in to certian realities as to the shape of the world. So it was a big commitment. Now, this map that you see in the book is not how I actually painted the map. I painted it in what is called rectilinear projection, which is a fancy word for saying that if you divide the map into a grid, every square in the grid is distorted equally. And so you end up with this rectangle. And you can get NASA imagery of the Earth in rectilinear projection. Now, why did I do this? Well, because there's a free NASA program called G-Projector, which lets you take a rectilinear map and distort it according to the projection of your choice. So you could have this in the Mercator projection or a globular projection, as we did here, or what have you. And I thought that was pretty fun. But I wanted a really detailed map. So the actual file for this, which I painted this on my iPad in Procreate, which is a great app. The actual file is about a gigabyte. [Audience membr] Oh, wow. Yeah. And in fact, I had a cherried out iMac Pro for painting... I couldn't even do a single brush stroke on that file without the program freezing and crashing [Audience member] Ohhhh So I had to buy a completely new maxed-out iPad Pro in order to paint this for you. So thank you for buying the deluxe edition. You... [Audience laughing] ...paid for my iPad. And of course, you've probably noticed that Alagaësia is a fairly small portion of the map I actually should have made it even smaller. The travel times in the books really should have been just a little longer than they were. So I compensated. This world is 20% shorter in diameter than the Earth is. But it, Elëa, the planet, is denser. So you still get the same gravity, roughly. But, I wouldn't have gone to the trouble of painting all this if I didn't plan on telling some stories in the rest of the map. [Audience member] Oh, yay. [Audience] Oooohhh So I just have to, you know, actually write them. That's the hard part. [Audience laughing] [Audence Member] You're young. You'll get there. You say I'm young, but, you know, the kids are, boy, it takes a toll sometimes. [Audience laughing] Anyway, I had a blast working on this. I hope you guys enjoy this. I think this is the most beautiful edition, special edition I've ever had in my career. And this is the level of artistry I hope to bring to future books along the way. I'm trying to think what else I want to talk about here briefly before doing some Q&A. Well, I could do a reading for you. That is sort of tradition in author presentations. All right. We have some enthusiasm there. Oh, before I do that, though. I don't know if you know this, but I am currently running, starting a Kickstarter with a company called Wraithmarked. Wraithmarked does all sorts of cool things with special editions and other stuff. Right now, the Kickstarter is top secret. Like, we're letting people sign up for it, but we haven't announced what we are doing. We are announcing it on November 4th. We were going to do it on the 5th, but we decided that was a bad idea. [Audience Laughing] Can we just get past this? [Audience Laughing] I don't care what side of the aisle you are in. We've got to get past this election. So on the 4th, it will be revealed what the Kickstarter is for. I will just say, I think you are going to love it. We are trying to keep the price under $100, so it's not going to be too bad. And the hint I will give you is this. I have wanted to do many things with the world of Eragon over the years, and I've been severely limited because most of the rights outside of the books are owned by Fox and now Disney, which means I can't do many of the things you've seen other fantasy franchises doing in terms of merch and other projects. However, I found that I had a little bit of a legal loophole, and this loophole, this window of opportunity, only lasts until the House of Mouse formally greenlights a live-action television show of Eragon. Which we are very close to finding out if that's a go, no-go, on the first season, by the way. Very exciting, yes. And I am attached, I'm co-writing and producing the show. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] Thank you. [Audience Applause] Which, you know, is really exciting, given that Eragon's never been adapted before. [Audience Laughing] [Audence Member] I don't know what you're talkin' about. Neither do I. [Audience Laughing] But, but, but, in any case, there is a brief window here before the House of Mouse flips that switch where I can do something that I will never have the opportunity to do again. And that's what this Kickstarter is. So, if you're interested, I have with me a printout with a QR code on it. I'm going to put it on the table next to me as I sign. And if you want to scan that QR code, it'll take you to the info for the Kickstarter. So, check it out if you want. Uh, I'm excited. I think you'll be excited as well. Uh, right. I was going to do a reading, wasn't I? [Audience Member] Yes! Okay. One second. My, uh, voice is dry. Lots of plane flights. And coffee. I'm trying to keep to three cups a day on tour. [Audience Member] Did the driver get you a Slurpee at least? No. [Audience Laughing] Vlad deprived me of a Slurpee. [Audience Laughing] Not that I would have... I don't drink slurpees, so. It's coffee or water for me. [Audence Member] It's the thought that counts. Is it? Is it? [Audience Laughing] I mean, with a name like Vlad, you really have to decorate the Uber with stakes and crosses and all that. But, no. Alright, let me find the page. Alrightie, so this is a reading from fairly early in Murtagh. Uh, I chose, I do this reading because I think it has, it does a good job of, um, conjuring up the mood of the story. And it's also relatively spoiler-free. Uh, the only major spoilers, apologies, are that Murtagh and Thorn are still alive. [Audience Laughing] [Audience member] Whaaaat? So, here we go. Careful to be quiet, Murtagh stood. Picked up Zar'roc from by his blanket. And walked a ways from the camp. The frost-laden grass crunched under his boots, a crisp, dry sound. He stood in an expanse of empty sward, chest up, shoulders back, staring forward into the future. An intake of frozen air, and he swept Zar'roc from its crimson sheath. In dawn's gray light, the sword's blade was a sharpened shard, of iridescent red. A shimmering thorn of frozen blood, eager to cut, and stab, and kill. The blade of a Rider, forged out of Brightsteel by an elven smith over a century past, and imbued with spells of strength, and keenness, and resistance. The finest weapon a warrior could hope to wield. And yet he regarded it with as much aversion as appreciation. A Rider's blade, yes, but that Rider had been Morzan, his father and Morzan had used Zar'roc for many a black and bloody deed, as had Murtagh after him. Not for nothing had Morzan named the blade Misery in the Ancient Language, and true to its name, the sword had brought pain to many throughout the land, including Murtagh himself. Sometimes, he wondered if he should have ever taken Zar'roc from Eragon. He shook off the thought. Whether he wanted it or not, Morzan's shadow would always lie upon him, and aside from his name and the scar on his back, Zar'roc was all he had from his father. It was a meager and hateful inheritance, but it was his alone, and for that, he clung to it. He held the sheath in his off hand as he flowed through the familiar forms. Step, cut, parry, turn, block, swing, lunge. He moved without thinking. His mind is still and empty as a windless lake on a cloudless day. Attack, defend, escape, beat and break, search the opening, make the cut, risk the stab. He used the sheath as a dagger, blocking, deflecting, rapping the wrist, creating opportunities for a lethal blow. His skin warmed and his pulse steadied. He moved faster, pushing himself to maintain the pace of battle. Every movement, a whip-snap of life-preserving, life-ending action. His lungs gave out before his arms. Unable to continue, he fell to his knees and braced the sheath against the ground. Zar'roc, he placed across his thighs. As the first rays of light crept across the frozen grass, the egg-shaped ruby in Zar'roc's pommel refracted the beams, splitting them into glowing darts of red. Once his breath steadied, he stood, sheathed the blade, and staggered back to camp. Across the dead fire, Thorn watched. He sniffed as Murtagh came close. "You stink of... fear" Murtagh grunted. "I know. I'll wash." He flinched as Thorn licked his elbow. Then he forced himself to relax, and patted the dragon's head. [Applause] Thank you. [Applause continues] Alright, let me see how we're doing on time here. Not too bad, I talk fast. I would love to answer some of your questions now. I'm sure you have a couple, so hold up your hand and we'll see what we can do. Yes? [Audience Member] Okay, so I have a question about colors associated with characters. Yes. [Audience Member] I've always kind of pictured Murtagh wearing dark brown, even though I couldn't find text evidence of that until the cover for the new book dropped. And I'm like, ah, he's reading my mind! So I'm curious about colors that you associate with characters other than a character who's a rider being associated with the dragon's color. So the question is about colors associated with characters. That's a very important part of these books. Eragon, of course, is associated with blue, which is why he had to get a new sword eventually. Arya, of course, is green. Murtagh is red and brown. You know, Galbatorix is black, of course, with Shruikan. So it's a handy little bit of thematic shorthand for conveying meaning and feeling to the reader. But it's also helpful for me in guiding about how I think about the characters. And it is something I think about. [Audience Member] I've noticed Nasuada's colors change a lot. Oh, yes. Nasuada is a, well, she is a complicated person. Good question. Yes. [Audience Member] From book one till now, if it has changed, has your writing process changed or evolved as you continue working on each book? Has my writing process changed over the years? I do a lot more prep work. The only reason I could write Eragon back in the day is I did do a lot of prep work, but then I got out of the habit of that while writing the series because I had the series mostly planned. That got me into trouble with To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. I thought I was hot stuff and knew what I was doing and didn't need to do all the planning. So I jumped into it and wrote 300,000 words of meandering story. So I cannot plot and write at the same time. I have to plot first. I also put a ton of prep work into the world building for the Fractalverse, which is my sci-fi side of things. And the nice thing is now that work is done. So it's faster and easier to actually tell stories in that world. But yes, a lot of prep work. But then the writing itself and my day-to-day is fairly similar. It's a nine-to-five for me. I put the hours in. The biggest change in the past few years has been having kids, which I'm still sort of figuring out how to manage my day-to-day with that. So, good question. Yes, nice beard. Grow it yourself? [Audience Member] Yes. Good. [Audience Member] So my question relates to tattoos and the Ancient Language. Yes. [Audience Member] Because in many fantasy series, you can imbue power, and you can do it in Inheritance to where the pommel of the rider's swords, they store power in. Could you do the same thing with, say, a rider gets a tattoo of "brisingr" and or carves it into a wall. Can they store energy in that and use it at a later date, like just kind of tapping it to turn on a light? That's a really interesting question. So the question is, if one were to get a tattoo of the symbol for brisingr or carve it into a wall, or I would assume write it on a piece of paper, could you use that to store energy? So if you tap it, you start a fire, for example. I'm going to say no, because if you did that, if you wrote a scroll in the Ancient Language, the whole thing could be a gigantic mess if you tap any of the words. But that said, the Ancient Language is the language of magic. And so if you were to write a sentence that says, you know, "light the wood in my fireplace on fire as I say this," and then you give it some energy as you say it, then you're essentially casting a spell. What you could do, though, you need a medium, to actually store the energy. And that traditionally has been a gem, a gemstone in the world. Now, if you paired that with a gemstone, then yes, that would work. And you could attach, it wouldn't have to be an ancient language symbol, it could be a trigger of any kind. It could be a button, it could be a patch that you touch, it could be a word you say, and you could join that to an energy source, like a gem. And then you have energy on tap to perform the action that you wish at the time you wish, in the way you wish, and because the energy source is a gem, and the energy is pre-stored, a non-magic user, a non-magician could still access it and use it. So a Roran could come in and hit the button that's tied to the spell, and it's all pre-programmed essentially, and poof, the fire is lit. These are the things that keep me up at night. [Audience Laughing] Yes. [Audience Member] So continuing on languages, how did you develop the language and the alphabet for the world of Alagaësia? Well, I have multiple languages and alphabets. Which one are you asking about? [Audience Member] What was your thought process in developing all of them? So how did I develop the languages for the world of Eragon? Well, I wanted a language and I wanted the Ancient Language of which was going to be the language of magic. So when I needed the first word in that language, it was going to be a word for fire and I had a bunch of word origin dictionaries and books on mythology sitting around and I went digging through them and I found the word "brisingr," which is from Old Norse, and it's a mythological word and I liked it, so I used it and then I ransacked the language, the Old Norse language for words as well as some old German words and various other things to sort of create the Ancient Language. When it came to the Dwarf language though, that one I invented pretty much from scratch and you just come up with some words and consonant clusters, vowel clusters you like and then create rules based off those. And then start working on the grammar, which is where I'm the weakest. Now, with the Ancient Language, the reason I use the Old Norse is because again, I like the sound that it gave to that Ancient Language. In Eldest, when Eragon meets the elves, they have the Elvish Blessing. So I'm going to recite that for you to give you an idea of what this would sound like. The problem is, and I have to apologize, I have an absolutely horrendous Elvish accent. [Audience Laughing] And that's because in the Ancient Language, you're supposed to roll your R's on the tip of your tongue the way you would in Spanish or Italian, and I can't do this. This is answer number 36, subsection B, by the way. [Audience Laughing] In fact, the only way that I can roll my R's is by wiggling my uvula. That's the thing that hangs in the back of your throat. So I'm going to wiggle my uvula at you guys, and I hope you like it too. Atra esterní ono thelduin. Mor'ranr lifa unin hjarta onr. Un du evarínya ono varda. [Audience Applause] Now, as I said, the Dwarf language I invented from scratch, and it's really my favorite one because it's a very meaty language that you can sink your teeth into. And I can, I think I can do this from memory. There's a chunk of Dwarvish from Eldest where this angry Dwarf is complaining about Eragon and Saphira being in the Dwarves' mountains. And I think I can recite the first part of this from memory. Now, the thing is, is, unlike the Ancient Language, I actually have an excellent Dwarvish accent. And that's because in the dwarf language, you are supposed to roll your R's by wiggling your uvula. So let the wiggling commence. Formv Hrethcarach... Formv Jurgencarmeitder nos eta goroth bahst Tarnag, dûr encesti rak kythn! Jok is warrev az barzûlegûr dûr dûrgrimst, Az Sweldn rak Anhûin, môgh tor rak Jurgenvren. [Audience Member] Wooo! [Audience Applause] And now you know why Dwarves are usually hoarse, and no one much likes listening to their love poems aside from other Dwarves. Although I've always said that if I could live in Alagaësia, I'd go live with the Dwarves because they have more fun than the Elves, and I'd write some Dwarvish opera. Good question. Yes? [Audience Member] So there's been a lot of speculation online, but will we ever get a full confirmed crossover hypothetically between Sea of Stars and Eragon with a certian character? Would there ever be a crossover between the Fractalverse and the world of Eragon? I have no idea what you're talking about. [Audience Laughing] [Audience Member] A non-answer is still an answer. Fox owns the rights to the world of Eragon, and a different production owns the rights to the Fractalverse, so they couldn't possibly be related. I don't know what you're talking about. You'll have to shout. [Audience Member] Are you a Christian? Am I a Christian? Good question. I make a habit to never discuss politics or religion in public. So I respect your beliefs, I hope you respect my beliefs, and my belief is to not talk about it at the moment. [Audience Applause] Especially not around an election. No matter what I say, no one's going to like what I say. So, you know, yes? [Audience Member] In Murtagh, you brought up if-then statements in the Ancient Language, and I appreciate that a lot. Do you plan to increase the complexity of magic as you write more books? So, in Murtagh, slight spoiler, I bring up the possibility of if-then statements in magic, which is a major part of computer programming, for example. And my thought is, my characters are smart. They're smart people in my world. If there's something that they can use and exploit, they're going to use and exploit it. And it would be remiss of me to not allow them to do that, because otherwise I'm artificially limiting them. And they're very human, or rather intelligent behavior. So, yes, I'm sure we'll see more of that in the future. So many cool hands up. Yes? [Audience Member] So, there's been a bit of a debate over here... How do we pronounce your last name? How do we pronounce my last name? Paolini. Although, if you're in Italy, it's a little more like Paolini, you know? Funnily enough, the only place in the U.S. that consistently says Italian last names properly is Hawaii. Because the vowels in Hawaiian are said the same as if the vowels in Italian. The more you know. Yes, Hat. [Audience Member] How do you decide when you've done enough prep work to write [...] prep work as well? Oh, great question. How do you know if you've done enough prep work to write your book? (A.) Do you know all the different ways in which you are going to break physics in your world? [Audience Laughing] I'm serious. Whether it's with magic or technology, that dictates the physical realities of your setting. (B.) Do you have a good sense of the general setting? You know, the society, the technology, the physical locations. You don't have to know it in great, great, great detail, but do you have a good general sense? (C.) This is the most important one. Do you know what it is your story is doing? Now, you can define this in a couple of ways. If it is a character-based story, you can say, Do I know what my character wants and needs? Those are two separate things, want and need. He wants to kill Galbatorix, he needs to grow up. Do I know what my character wants and needs. Do I know how they are going to change over the course of the story. What is stopping them from changing, that is what are the obstacles. And does the main character succeed? Or is it a tragedy and they fail. Um if it's not a character-based story, if it like um Sherlock Holmes is not character-based in the sense that Sherlock Holmes doesn't change as a character, James Bond does not change as a character, and these are some of the most popular characters, some of these characters who don't change, and if that's the case, then what is changing is the character's understanding of the world. They learn about the villain's evil plan, they they learn who killed so-and-so, and then it's the playing out of that discovery process and the implications of it that is your story. I need to be able to sit down with a friend or family member and tell them the story. I need to have the ability to sit down with someone and tell them the story I plan on writing in a way that actually makes sense before I write. Because if I can't do that, I don't know what my story is. Now it doesn't mean I'm actually going to sit down with someone and tell them my story because eww. Right? I'm a writer not, an actor, but I still need that ability. It's very very important. And the few times I've not had that understanding is when I get myself, you know, deep into a manuscript and realise the story is not working. And you know when it works. We're all good storytellers. Humans are good storytellers. We organise all information in the form of a story, even if it's scientific or mathematical information. (a) causes (b) which results in (c). That is a story. And we just use fancy words for it. Alright, another question. Yes. [Audience Member] If the main characters were sent in today's world, what cars would they drive. I have to know. If if my main characters were set... were in the real world, what cars would they drive? Wow, no one's ever asked me that before. Um I'm not a car guy. So I don't know if I can answer this. I I'll take a stab at it. [Audience Member] Brom drives a Honda Civic [Audience Laughing] No, Brom drives a 1950s Chevy pickup truck, that you wouldn't look twice at on the road and it's rusted through on the floorboards. Um. Let's see wha wha... uh... Murtagh drives a red Ferrari. [Audience Member] Ahh, I love it! [Audience Laughing] Or a Lamborghini. But I'm Italian, so let's go with Ferrari. Um [Audience Member] They're both Itallian. He drives a Ducati. Okay, actually we could go with motorcycles, which makes more sense for dragons. Um yeah, then he's they's gonna go with Ducati, uh definitely. Um. I don't what Eragon would drive. I don't know. Um maybe a blue BMW. Uh. Wonder what Angela would drive... probably a... [Audience Member] A TARDIS [Audience Laughing] No, I was gonna say a VASPA. [Audience Laughing] That, that seems more appropriate, but to get to the TARDIS. [Audience Laughing] Alright, another question. Yes. [Audience Member] So uh when you first started the Eragon series, uh did you always know that uh your Werecats were gonna be involved with the uh Eldunarí? Great question. Uh when I started Eragon did I know that the Werecats would be involved with the Eldunarí? No, because in the first draft of Eragon I had no Werecats. Mind you in the first draft of Eragon, Eragon was also named Kevin. [Audience Laughing] So maybe don't pay too much attention to that version. [Audience Member] Thank you for changing it! Um no, once I introduced Werecats, I knew they were gonna play a major role. Although that said, I they really have to be called Werehumans because they're cats that change into humans, not humans that change into cats. So random thought. Yes. [Audience Member] So in the Inheritance Cycle the Dwarves give Eragon an amulet which is imbued with the the power to make people not able to scry them. Right. [Audience Member] And this power draws from the user, so Eragon. And then later on in the story Eragon enchants the rings for Roran and Katrina. So the question is, if you... because later in the story he gives Rorin the ability to say "frethya frethya" and go invisible, why is could this not be used more often in non-magic users to give them the ability to use magic? So the question is... is regarding enchating objects that draw energy from the body of the person wearing that object, lets say. Whether it's a ring, or a necklace, and why this isn't done more often with non-magic user to give them some proteciton. I think it is. In fact it's even hinted at uh in Murtagh, talking about a hedge witch who can give them charms. Uh I think there would be lots of things. The problem is, from the point of view of a non-magic user, how are you supposed to know that what you're given actually works. Unless it's, like, doing something very obvious, like "this amulet's supposed to stop you from getting stabbed in the heart." - "Okay Bob, try stabbing me." [Audience Laughing] But but if it's something more amorphous like this'll stop you stop someone from scrying on you. I promise. Pinkie pinkie promise. Well. how are you supposed to know if it's working? You wouldn't. So um you'd probably be like the Witcher and just accumulate a huge number of charms. Just keep 'em all over and be like "well one of these has to work, you know, I don't know which one, but one of these has to work." But that goes back to the problem of having magic users and non-magic users in the same world, which I think too few... I think a lot of fantasy books just don't address it well enough quite honestly. So uh yes, in the back [Audience Member] Will we see Roran soon, or again? Will we see more Roran? Yes! In the next book. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] [Audience Member] Are we every going to find out what the Menoa Tree tree took from Eragon? Will we find out what the Menoa Tree tree took from Eragon? Book Six. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] By the way I'm not saying the next book is book six. [Audience Laughing] I might write something new and then book six becomes book seven, but you will find out what the Menoa Tree took. [Audience Member] So with the theory of inheritance being such a big part of um Murtagh's character, why did you decide to have Eragon create his own sword instead of find Brom's? Ah so why did I decide um why did I decide to have Eragon forge his own sword instead of inheriting Brom's sword? Because it felt too convenient. Because it's too easy to wrap everything up with a nice neat bow and have everyone... everything be completely one hundred percent thematically appropriate and life's not really like that, so yeah sure it would have been nice if Eragon had gotten Brom's sword, I thought about it. But does life really work that way? Not usually. Um besides him getting to forge his own sword was awfully cool and I that that is what that was one of the places where the the the rule of cool uh came out on top. I'm not saying Brom's sword won't show up some day, but you know. Yes. [Audience Member] Did you consult with Gerard Doyle about the voices he used in the audio books or did he come up with those on his own? Did I consult with Gerard Doyle, my audiobook reader, on the voices he created for the audiobooks? Um no. [Audience Laughing] And Gerard does a wonderful job reading the books. I wouldn't nitpick his performance. I will say though that because of how he chose to read Saphira, [Audience Laughing] ... that I described every single dragon in the series as they appear as having a deeper voice than every other dragon. Simply to give poor Gerard a hard time. [Audience Laughing] And when they got to Inheritance um they had to digitally distort his voice ... [Audience Member] Oh, ho! [Audience Laughing] ... because he was already bottomed out. [Audience Laughing] And some of the Dwarven words and Urgal words I wrote specifically to be tongue twisters for him. [Audience Laughing] Such as the the um was it the the polished balls of dirt that the the dwarves did the or is it the or is it the spikes [Audience member] Thardsvergûndnzmal. {Editor's note: That is actually the name of the chapter where the Erôthknurl, the word he was looking for, appers} Thardsvergûndnzmal! Exactly. Or the Urgal's name for themselves, which is Urgralgra, which you just kind of have to choke a little bit as you do that. Urgralgra. Which I did come up with that after listening to my cat cough up, cough up a hairball. [Audience Laughing] Urgralgra. Anyway. I could go where where I could go for a while here. I'd love to keep answering your questions, but there are a lot of books to sign here and I wanna make sure I have time to sign all of them. Don't keep you here too late. That said, that said, if you have a question I didn't manage to answer, please feel free to ask me as you come up to the signing table. Again, I'm gonna have the QR code uh for the kickstarter next to me. Also, if you are interested in keeping up with my uh various shenanigans and activities, you can find me on my website paolini.net And if you're interested in the sci-fi side of things, please check out fractalverse.net, which has a free story for you and tons of concept art. Uh also I'm on social media in all the usual places uh including Twitter well actually what do we call it X now? [Audience Groans] What do you say "I Xed him?" No. Sounds like you're knocking someone off. Anyway, um. [Audience Laughing] [Audience Member] It does! But I'm mostly active on Twitter Anyway. I hope to see you there. Thank you for reading the books. It means the world to me. I am gonna be reading through many more books in the world of Eragon and the Fractalverse. I hope you keep reading them. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] Oh! And the illustrated edition of Eldest is currently in the works. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] And that one'll be coming out next year. Uh if you keep buying them we'll keep making them. Uh I think that's all I got folks. As Eragon himself would say: "Sé onr sverdar sitja hvass!," "May your swords stay sharp." Thank you. [Audience Cheering and Clapping] [MC] Alright let's give it up for Christopher. [Cheering and Clapping Continues] [MC] Alright, I'd like everybody to stay seated right now. Wasn't he wonderful? Oh my goodness. You guys were such a great crowd.