Loving to keep us in suspense, Christopher has tweeted yet another clue about his work-in-progress scifi short — which we reported on just a few days ago. At this point, all we know of the short story is that it will be a science fiction tale and will act as an introduction of sorts to Christopher’s first post-Inheritance novel (also scifi and unrelated to Alagaesia). Looking for the clue in question? Keep reading!

First, for Christopher’s cryptic tweet:

Here's a clue about the short story I'm working on. I'll be impressed if anyone can guess what it is (no not telling): http://t.co/a4R2dZ3G
January 4, 2012 11:09 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@InheritanceCP
Christopher Paolini

Christopher embedded an image in his tweet. The image depicts a very interesting black and white… thing? Check it out:


Christopher himself stated that he would be impressed if anyone could guess what this image represents… and impressed he was! One fan, @Julieanngrasso, was able to determine what the image is and found a Wikipedia entry explaining it — the “Mandelbrot set”. Wikipedia describes the Mandelbrot set as “a particular mathematical set of points whose boundary is a distinctive and easily recognisable two-dimensional fractal shape. The set is closely related to Julia sets (which include similarly complex shapes), and is named after the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, who studied and popularized it.” We’re still pretty lost.

Christopher has since confirmed that the fan’s link is in fact correct — the cryptic Twitter photo has been identified, but we’re no closer to figuring out what role it will play in the author’s upcoming scifi short.

Now that we know what this image represents, do you have any guesses as to what it could mean for Christopher’s scifi story or what more he may be hinting at with its revelation? Sound off in the comments!

You can follow Christopher Paolini on Twitter at @InheritanceCP. Shur’tugal is also on Twitter at @ItsShurty and on Facebook on our official Shurtugal.com Fan Page.