Publication Order of The Inheritance Cycle Books
| Eragon | 2002 |
| Eldest | 2005 |
| Brisingr | 2008 |
| Inheritance | 2011 |
| Murtagh | 2023 |
Publication Order of Tales from Alagaesia Books
| The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm | 2018 |
Publication Order of Fractalverse Books
| To Sleep in a Sea of Stars | 2020 |
| Fractal Noise | 2023 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| Eragon’s Guide to Alagaesia | 2009 |
About Christopher Paolini
Christopher Paolini is an American author of fantasy and science fiction, born in Los Angeles on 17 November 1983 and raised in Paradise Valley, Montana. He is best known for the Inheritance Cycle, the four dragon-rider novels that began with “Eragon”, which he started writing at the age of 15.
Paolini was home schooled and finished high school at 15 through correspondence courses. “Eragon” was first published in 2002 by Paolini International, his parents’ publishing company, and he promoted it by touring more than 135 schools and libraries in medieval costume. He also drew the cover of that first edition and the maps inside. The stepson of the novelist Carl Hiaasen found the book in a shop, Hiaasen passed it to his publisher Alfred A. Knopf, and Knopf reissued it in August 2003. Paolini was a New York Times bestselling author at 19.
The Inheritance Cycle is set in the land of Alagaesia and follows Eragon and his dragon Saphira. It was planned as a trilogy, but after “Eldest” (2005) and “Brisingr” (2008) a fourth book, “Inheritance”, completed it in 2011. The series has sold more than 41 million copies, and in 2011 Guinness World Records recognised Paolini as the youngest author of a bestselling book series. A film of “Eragon” was released in December 2006 to mostly negative reviews.
He returned to Alagaesia with the story collection “The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm” (2018) and with “Murtagh” (2023), a novel set a year after “Inheritance” that follows Eragon’s half-brother and his dragon Thorn. In 2022 Variety reported that Paolini was co-writing a live-action “Eragon” television series for Disney+.
His first science fiction novel, “To Sleep in a Sea of Stars”, was published by Tor in 2020 and opened a setting he calls the Fractalverse. A prequel, “Fractal Noise”, followed in 2023, and its audiobook was chosen for the American Library Association’s Listen List in 2024. Paolini holds Italian as well as American citizenship and still lives in Paradise Valley.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).