Early Life
While born in Los Angeles, California, Christopher Paolini was raised by his mother and father in Paradise Valley, Montana alongside his younger sister, Angela Paolini. Both he and his sister were homeschooled, and he graduated at the age of 15. Additionally, he was quite the avid reader and writer, which fed him into his future career as a successful author.
Where is he now?
Paolini is still writing books to this day, mainly trying his hand at his new sci-fi based stories as well as potentially working with Disney to bring to life a live-action adaptation of "The Inheritence Cycle." Paolini has also hinted at a fifth book in "The Inheritance Cycle" after his venture into sci-fi is over.
Career
Paolini began his first novel, "Eragon", at the age of fifteen. He finally had this novel published four years later at the age of nineteen (in 2002) through his parents' publishing company, Paolini International LLC. In order to promote his book, Paolini toured to over 100 schools and libraries talking about reading and writing while dressed up in a medieval outfit. Not long after publishing Eragon, Carl Hiassen, a well-renowned novelist, had his attention brought to "Eragon" by his stepson. Hiassen thought the book had some potential, leading him to show the book to his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. They made an offer to the family to publish "Eragon" and the Paolinis accepted. After additional revising, it was published in 2003, quickly becoming a New York Times Bestseller. The success of "Eragon" led to the creation of three more books, "Eldest", "Brisinger", and finally "Inheritance", released in 2005, 2008, and 2011. Additionally, in 2006, "Eragon" received a live-action adaptation from Fox 2000, but the film received mostly negative reviews from critics. After the completion of his first four books, collectively known as "The Inheritance Cycle", Paolini created three companion books to the series. These companion books were as follows: "Eragon's Guide to Alagaësia" (2009), "The Official Eragon Coloring Book" (2017), and "Tales from Alagaësia: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm" (2018). Following these publications, he has also started work on several books within the sci-fi genre (To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (2020), Unity (2021), and Fractal Noise (2023)).
Inspiration
Paolini's main sources of inspiration came from J.R.R. Tolkien and E.R. Eddison. His first novel received lots of inspiration from the work "Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher", by Bruce Coville and "Beowulf". His writing was also influenced by David Eddings, Andre Norton, Brian Jacques, Anne McCaffrey, Raymond E. Feist, Mervyn Peake, Ursula K. Le Guin and Frank Herbert.