Our friends over at Suvudu.com, Random House's fantasy and sci-fi blogging initiative, have informed us of an exciting activity they're running to coincide with March Madness: SF/fantasy-character cage matches. Suvudu's team of editors selected a large group of popular and easily-recognizable fantasy and SF characters to fight in pre-written cage matches. The winner of each round is up to the viewers (done by vote). Our very own Eragon will be pitted against Aslan in the third division on March 10th. If Eragon makes it through the first round (which he will with your help - be sure to vote!), he'll move on to fight the other round one winners. Aslan is never going to see it coming! Be sure to continue reading for more information on the event! Continue reading...
We're here in Union Square getting ready for Gerard Doyle to take the stage and read a few pages from Eldest. For the past hour or so, we've been eyeing the unopened boxes of books in giddy anticipation. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with the live feed, but the video will be up within one hour of the event. Just in case you lost the link, you can check it here.
Hope you're as excited as us and that you'll check out the video after it's finished!
Update: Gerard Doyle is reading a brilliant excerpt, the chapter called "Inheritance". His voice is amazing. Picture here... Other images in the gallery there too.
Update (11:51): "Please give a rock star welcome to the amazing and tireless, Christopher Paolini!"
Update (11:57): "There are two people here today that made a major contribution to me and the series, and I would like to introduce you to them: My Mom! Without her, Brisngr wouldn't be here today..."
"And I am going to embarrass someone else, my wonderful wonderful editor: Michelle Fry is here. Michelle is the reason this book is half as good as it is, thank you Michelle"
He is starting questions soon!
Update: Question: What did you think about the movie? "I think it is fantastic the book was made at all, so few books ever made to film; just like the film is the film maker's version of the story, the book is my version of the story."
Update: "IT'S MIDNIGHT!!!!"
Update (12:02): Christopher is reading from the book! Won't spoil it for you...
Update (12:05): The signing is beginning. More updates soon.
Update (12:19): Christopher has already been signing for about 15 minutes but only 3 rows have actually gotten through the line. They just started playing "Love Me Do" by The Beatles on the speakers.
Update (12:28): Christopher is still signing, but we've put our second batch of pictures online! Check them out here.
Christopher Paolini sent out his newest newsletter today, talking about what it's like around the house before he heads out on his tour as well as what it's like when there's a small error in his books. As always, the newsletter is entirely worth reading, and if you aren't subscribed, you can read it here in our Alagaesia Newsletter archive!
We're excited to exclusively release the entire Borders Book Club with Christopher Paolini, available only to fans of Shurtugal.com until Tuesday. Some of you may recall our search earlier this month for talkative and excited fans to venture to Michigain to discuss Inheritance with Christopher Paolini and other fans. We now have an hour-long Book Club from the event, edited into ten separate chapters.
The chapters include Creating Eragon and Eldest, Stuff Christopher Likes, Advice for Apsiring Writers, Developing Names and Languages, Home Schooling, Theories and Questions, the Movie and Videogames, and the Online Community. Christopher and the fans discussing with him even discuss Shurtugal.com during their Online Community (Chapter 10) segment! There are a lot of exciting discussions and tidbits throughout the entire show - the discussion is packed with facts and theories. We'll be picking through the entire show and compiling a list of key things, however, until then we encourage everyone to watch and re-watch!
Update: Anyone who has already submitted their answer to the email address provided in order to enter for a flash drive must do so again. A problem Gmail was having prevented us from receiving these emails. All emails sent before 4:30 PM EST on August 27 must be re-sent.
With Vroengard Academy well under way, we're excited to release the contents of the first flash drive handed out at the launch of the Vroengard Academy. Three flash drives have been released to fans and we'll be releasing the content of the flash drives over the next week.
Today we're releasing a never-before-seen excerpt from Eragon in both PDF form and an audio recording of the same excerpt done by Christopher Paolini. The audio excerpt can be viewed by playing the video below.
You can view the PDF excerpt here (this may require you to download the Adobe PDF reader for free) and listen to the audio MP3 recording here.
We're also excited to announce a raffle of ten of the first flash drives! The flash drives are blue, have Eragon and The Inheritance Cycle written on them in Eragon font, and contain the files above. They were released in extremely limited quantities and will never be made again. If you're interested in entering the raffle (it's free and easy), click the "Story Continues..." link to learn more! Continue reading...
Thanks to the Paolini family, we've received pictures of a few new book covers from foreign editions of Eragon and Eldest. First are the Ukraine editions of the books - the cover of Eragon features Eragon, Saphira, and two major cities/capitals. The cover for Eldest features Eragon, Thorn, Saphira, and what appears to be an elven city tree.
The second set of photos are of the Japanese copies of Eldest, split over four books (due to size), which feature four different 3D-rendered portraits of Thorn.
Our friends at Random House have let us know that they will be publishing an Inheritance Cycle Omnibus, containing both Eragon and Eldest in one book, slated to release on July 8th in the USA.
In addition to both of the novels being published as one big book, Random House has given the publication brand new cover art and is including exclusive manuscript pages.
You can view the new cover art in either regular or extremely big versions by clicking the respective link. We'll be sure to update you if we receive more information regarding the new publication!
For those of you who don't know or are new to the site, Shurtugal.com has its very own fan fiction page, where you can read and submit your own stories or poems based on the Inheritance Cycle (or even completely original stories). Shur'tugal Fan Fiction recently held a Story of the Year Award contest, in which fan fiction readers voted for their favorite stories of 2007 posted on Shur'tugal Fan Fiction. If you want to read some good fics, these are the perfect stories to start with:
Italian publisher Fabbri has released new Inheritance Trilogy backpacks. The Eragon backpack, blue like the book cover, features the drawing of Saphira and the golden "Eragon" letters (photo of the back here). The Eldest backpack is a maroon/red variation of the Eragon backpack, featuring the drawing of Thorn and the golden "Eldest" letters.
While we wait for more news on Book 3, those of you who follow (or don't follow) the bestseller book charts may be interested in getting up to speed on the Inheritance Trilogy's progress. Eragon, now on the New York Times bestseller list for 102 weeks, is currently the eighth best-selling children's paperback book. Eldest is outselling all other children's paperback books, coming in at number one.
For more specific information, including statistics from both the New York Times bestseller list and the USA Today bestseller list, continue reading this news article. Continue reading...
The Inheritance Trilogy's Japanese publisher has released three new pictures - seen here, here, and here - of their newest Eragon book cover. This cover appears to be a 3D rendition or real life model of the original Saphira painting by John Jude Palencar with the map of Alagaesia in the background.
Spanish publisher Roca Editorial recently released the cover of their Eragon Collector's Edition, which can be seen here and here. The cover features John Jude Palencar's drawing of Glaedr, the golden dragon from Eldest.
The trilogy's Serbian publisher, Carobna Knjiga, recently released their cover for Eldest, which is unlike any other cover of Eldest released this far. The cover, which can be seen here, shows Saphira and Glaedr in flight. Serbia also has a unique cover for Eragon, which can be seen here.
We hope to have larger photos soon. Keep checking back!
An interesting article about Christopher Paolini, the Inheritance Trilogy, and the wonderful folks behind the scenes at Random House Children's was recently published in the Bertelsmann Annual 2006 report. The cover page features a picture of the Random House Children's staff, many of whom Shur'tugal is privileged enough to work with, dressed in medieval wear in the middle of Times Square. The second page contains a photo of Michelle Frey (Christopher's Editor), Judith Haut, Chip Gibson, and Nancy Hinkel.
The article details the Inheritance trilogy's success throughout the world and Random House's key roll in the marketing of the books. The article also notes the intended but unspecific release date for Book 3 - 2008. The article is three pages long: page one, page two, page three. Enjoy!
Many of you may remember that in his last newsletter of December 22nd, 2006 (which can be viewed here) Christopher Paolini mentioned in passing new cover art for Inheritance in the UK.
"...Crammed in among all these other activities was a visit to Random House UK (where I saw mockups of new editions of Eragon and Eldest with covers unlike any other version in the world)..."
Immedietly after the newsletter was sent out, Shurtugal contacted Random House UK for additional information, and we are proud to now be able to exclusively release the first public looks at the new covers. Random House UK has created new covers for both the Eragon and Eldest books, which differ greatly from the covers we have seen for the last several years. The covers are both on a white background with minimal images. The images are of a more-realistic/reptilian looking dragon in sepia tones.
These covers will be used on paperback editions of both books, which will be available for purchase in the UK (and on Amazon UK) on March 1st, 2007. Both covers can be viewed below. Enjoy!
Christopher Paolini released his twenty-second "Alagaesia News" newsletter on Friday. The newsletter, which featured a photo of Christopher with actor Jeremy Irons (Brom) at the Eragon movie after party, talked about Christopher's trip to the United Kingdom for the movie, the movie's release, and his trip home.
The premiere itself was everything I expected it to be: big, loud, and lots of fun. There were countless blue Christmas lights strung up around the location, several gigantic video screens playing looped footage of Saphira flying and breathing fire, loudspeakers blaring the movie music, thousands of screaming fans, hundreds of journalists, and several dozen publicists running from place to place. The most impressive thing, however, was the line of fireballs that exploded from the top of the marquee every thirty seconds or so. They were so big, I could feel the heat a good twenty feet away. As soon as I got out of the car, I began signing pictures, posters, and other miscellaneous pieces of paper. That continued for about half-an-hour, and then I moved on to the journalists and one-by-one, worked my way through them. One of the Fox publicists later told me that I did fifty-one interviews in a row that night.
You can read this and all of Christopher's other newsletter in our Alagaesia News archive. If you haven't yet subscribed, you can do so by visiting the official Inheritance trilogy website, Alagaesia.com.
