Up
the airy mountain
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl's feather.
Excerpt from The Fairies by William Allingham
That’s
the beginning of one of my favorite poems. Some of
you may recognize it from the original film version
of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I like
The Fairies so much that when I climbed Emigrant,
a local mountain, and reached the cairn on top, I
wrote the first four lines in the notebook kept in
a tin under the rocks. . . . For those of you who
don’t hike, it’s customary for alpinists to record
their names in some manner—runes, rocks, strips of
cloth, etc.) whenever they reach the summit of a mountain.
Eldest
continues apace. Not too much to report on that front,
except that I can now say with some confidence that
Eldest will be longer than Eragon.
It seems that I have a bit more story than I thought.
Of course, editing tends to trim down a manuscript,
so we’ll have to wait and see where it actually ends
up word-count wise.
Two
days ago we got our eight-year-old satellite dish
upgraded. Dad gave me the old dish, which I realized
would make a wonderful sparring shield. With that
in mind, I unscrewed the armature that had attached
it to the side of the house, bolted a leather strap
through the existing holes, then carved a wooden handle
and attached it in front of the leather band. Voilá!
I now have a perfectly functional, battle-ready shield.
I can’t wait to test it with my sister Angela.
Copies
of the Italian and Indonesian editions of Eragon
arrived. The Italian edition looks almost identical
to the US version. Same for the Indonesian, although
instead of hardcover, it’s trade paperback and the
artwork is glossy, not matte. So far all the foreign
publishers have used the same cover art that John
Jude Palencar painted for the US Eragon edition.
Here’s
the first line of Eragon in English:
“Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that
would change the world.”
And
in Italian:
Il vento ululava nella notte, portando con sé
un odore che avrebbe cambiato il mondo.
And
in Indonesian:
Angin melolong menerobos malam, membawa bau yang akan
mengubah dunia.
And
I thought the ancient language was tough!
A
copy of the Deluxe edition of Eragon came
in the same box as the Italian and Indonesian editions.
“Wow,” is all I can say. The team at Random House
have done another superb job. The book looks incredible.
I was delighted to see my drawing of Eragon’s
sword, Zar’roc, printed in blue ink on a back panel
of the fold-out map.
As
for the first line of Eldest . . . Well,
you just have to wait until the Deluxe edition is
released. It’s a killer one though, literally.
Back
to Book II!
May
your swords stay sharp,
Christopher
Paolini
For
more information and news about Eragon, visit
Alagaesia.com.
Random
House Children's Books 1745 Broadway, New York, NY
10019
