For Alagaesia: 1.The Resolute March

Eragon bent over from his position to catch Saphira's neck spikes as she performed a backward dive. They were far above the ground so as to avoid detection, but with their superior eye sight they could see everything that was on the ground. The ground seemed calm. There was no disturbance except for an odd deer running around. The situation was very peaceful. But Eragon & Saphira were hardly at peace. It was 4 days since the battle of Feinster but the memories of Glaedr during the last moments of Oromis still haunted them. A strange sense of guilt was creeping over Eragon. Saphira contacted him and said 'Do not think that you were responsible for their deaths, Eragon. They were more than capable of defending themselves. It was only ill-luck that must be blamed.' Eragon wasn't in any mood to speak about them then and so just nodded his head even though he knew she couldn't see him from her position. Saphira understanding his situation remained calm for a while. But Eragon's state wasn't anywhere near improved even after such prolonged isolation. So Saphira tugged at his mind till he let his barrier down. Once she established contact with him she pulled him deep into her mind. Eragon tried to resist. But she was too stubborn that he let her take control. Soon his vision was tinged blue and he felt considerably comfortable. But still there seemed to be a little discomfort and soon Eragon noticed that it was from Saphira that the discomfiting feeling rose. He was embarrassed to have thought that he was the only one to be affected heavily by their master's deaths. He knew Saphira just like the back of his hand. But had forgot her in his distress. She had tried to comfort him many times in the past four days. But he hadn't done that one bit with Saphira. He wanted to apologize to her. But before he could say anything, Saphira said to him, 'Little One, Don't worry about me. I am a dragon and I am strong.' For the first time in hours Eragon spoke, "Oh, Saphira... I am so sorry! I know that the loss of Glaedr is too much for you. You are alone again." Saphira answered him quite heatedly, 'No. I am not. I have you.' But after a slight pause, 'But you are right. He was the only other dragon in this whole land' Eragon sighed. Then in a biting voice answered her, "For this alone I could kill Galbatorix a hundred times." Saphira who had been so quiet till then let out a burst of flames and said to Eragon, 'If only that traitor hadn't enslaved the eldunarya, we could just now fly over his ill-gotten city and shred him to pieces'. Eragon patted Saphira's flanks partly in appreciation of her words and partly in desperation due to the truth behind them.

For Alagaesia: Prologue: Trapped

He was near the mark now. All his work of the past 25 days had led him here. He went into the tavern where his contact in the city had asked him to go. Just as he opened the door, loud noises of men enjoying themselves reached him. He looked around the room. It was all perfect; nothing strange for a tavern. So he had not been led astray by some lunatic who loved seeing people in difficulty. Sighing in relief, he looked for the one table that he was supposed to look. Sure enough there was the parchment that he was supposed to take. He went near the table. But as he approached the table, he became aware of a disturbance in the air. Somebody was running toward him. He was terrified to say the least. He knew what the empire did with spies. He had heard rumours about people's heads scarred and bloodied found in the sewage canals. He made up his mind to never go through such hell. He would rather kill any number of people, good or bad, he didn't care. But as he readied himself in the attacking stance, the man who had been running went past him and caught up with a hound of a man bear hugging him. He let out a strangled breath that he didn't actually know that he was holding till then. He took the parchment and went out of the tavern hastily.

My first novel length story - A Eragon fan-fiction

The real Author Christopher Paolini

I have been waiting for the arrival of the last book - Book No.4 - of the inheritance cycle for the past 1 year or so. I haven't been a good waiter. I wanted to read it as soon as I finished the third book of the series, - Brisingr - but it wasn't possible as the book wasn't released yet. By May 2010, I had finished my college and had about 7-8 months of free time of which 6 months are now over. These past six months I read various Inheritance Cycle fan-fictions, followed Shurtugal.com avidly, rummaged fan arts of Inheritance Cycle, read and contributed to discussion boards. All these made me write some blog posts about the Eragon 'world'. They can be found in these addresses - Defending the Inheritance Cycle, Explaining Arya, Fan-arts inspired by Inheritance cycle, Fanfiction and the pain it put me through & Why I love Eragon-Arya pairing. I also reread the three released books atleast 7-8 times. Even after all these my wait (and free time) isn't over. My joining date at TCS is December 15, 2010. I had started developing a story line for the Book IV of the Inheritance Cycle just days before I got my joining date. Now I have nearly finalised the story line and so I was thinking maybe I could make a fan-fiction out of it. Hence I will be posting a fan-fiction on this blog from tomorrow. The only major problem I have with the story now is that I don't have a name for the story. Hope I will come up with a nice name within tomorrow. A prospective title that I am considering is "For Alagaesia".

The story starts with the capture of a spy of the Varden by Galbatorix..........  LINK TO STORY

Why I love the Eragon - Arya pairing

Eragon - Arya & Aragorn -Arwen

Love in Books - almost always gets thrashed - but, occasionally is seen as the guideline for real-life love. And even rarely, it gets Epic status and stands tall, taller than even real-life love stories. One such 'epic' tales is Aragorn - Arwen of the Lord of the rings. This pairing attained such high proportions because of the fact that Arwen relinquished her immortality for the sake of living 'a life time' with Aragorn. And it really is a master stroke by JRR Tolkien. I myself, is an ardent worshipper of this pairing. In fact, my google homepage background image is that of Aragorn & Arwen from Peter Jackson's LOTR films. Theirs is really a fascinating tale. One love story in which everybody wants to be involved in. Well, maybe not, but it is one story in which I want to be part of.

Fan Arts inspired by Inheritance Cycle

A 'google' for the term Eragon always brings up images of Eragon, the movie that is so much unlike its inspiration, Eragon, the book. So I wanted to see for myself how the descriptions of the books will look like when drawn for I have had really great imaginations running in my brain. But unfortunately my drawing skills have been abysmal and never can hand match brain. Even so, I liked these fan-arts. They aren't perfect, but they will help people shift away from the image the movie has created in our minds. Further there was also the Eragon's Guide to Alagaesia with its share of images. They were great too, but I have to say that in my mind everything is a lot more different and a lot more beautiful. But as I said brain is always stupendous when it comes to imagination.

Alagaesia Map

Explaining Arya

A depiction of Ellesméra, Arya's home town in Eragon's Guide to Alagaësia

In my last post, I had defended the Inheritance Cycle by explaining how the views about it were skewed. I did that piece after having read the 3 released books of the Inheritance Cycle over and over for many times and while painstakingly waiting for the fourth book to be released. But that which made me write it were the various Anti-Eragon articles floating around the web in the form of blogs, bulletin boards, etc. Usually I don't read reviews of books that I read. I judge them by myself. But in the case of the Inheritance Cycle, I had to wait a lot for the fourth book and I was impatient. So I went ahead and read many fan-fictions and reviews about the series. That brought me into light about the harsh treatment meted out to the series. I had to questions the things that I took for granted (because I felt them to be right) against the questions asked about the series in the various anti-Eragon articles. It was (really) quite helpful for such an outlook brought the reasons for my feeling of rightness from the back of my mind to its fore. I made a summary of those reasons in the previous post.

Defending the Inheritance Cycle

Writing Fantasy Novels!! ........ A really intriguing and enticing prospect and a very good way to forget the problems that the real world presents us with. But when you want to do it commercially, then so much changes and you find yourself increasingly frustrated by the criticisms that you receive. It is true that you look forward to reviews so that you can improve yourself but when people point out something that you really enjoyed writing as a weak point in your script then you get annoyed. Readers don't really see what the writer would have gone through-and they are not obliged to-while writing the book. But there is one novel that I have seen to come under lots of negative feelings even though it isn't bad: The Inheritance Cycle.

A Fan fiction and the pain it put me through

"The Inheritance Cycle".... This has been a story that has fascinated me. I have read some 15 or so novels in English and this I daresay is among the closest to my heart. One reason: it is fantasy. I love fantasy more than anything. It takes me to another world. It makes me live among the people in the false-world. No! not false world. It is my world in the times that I read fantasies. Be it Harry Potter or Lord of the rings or Inheritance. Inheritance is not yet finished though. (As on 9/7/2010). I had read all the first three books of the series: Eragon, Eldest & Brisingr. I was awaiting the fourth with longing. I wanted to finish reading the fourth one as soon as possible. The waiting that Paolini put me through was too much. So I turned back to the first three books and read them again and the end of the read, my thirst had not quenched. It had only increased. So I turned my attention to fan-fictions and there were quite a lot. I read them. They were not well written. I hadn't expected them to be. There were dark tales, romantic tales and all. Then at last my eyes fell upon Eldunari by wildskysong alias Kallie in fanfiction.net. This seemed to be a neatly formed story. Had its own dark spots: Eragon's capture and the sort. But it was lovable. I liked reading it mainly because of the way the author handled Arya's feelings for Eragon and Eragon's dealing with Galbatorix. I thought it may finally quench my thirst. But alas, by the end I was cursing the writer much more than I was adoring her story at the middle part of Eldunari: She had killed Eragon. Just because she wanted Murtagh to be the rider's leader. I liked Murtagh's character. He was a real hero. But once he killed Hrothgar, all was gone. I finally started hating him after that: but no!!, I couldn't. He was such a fiercely good natured guy that hating him was impossible. But Eragon is different. He is "the hero". He can't die. He simply can't die....... The girl(wildskysong) has started some sequel named Edoc' sil to her Eldunari and had hinted eragon's resurrection using a phoenix feather at the end of Eldunari and the blasted Edoc' sil has just begun and now I am in deep distress. But I know something better.... I made Eragon live in my own version of the last two chapters of Eldunari. After all it is a fan-fiction of a fantasy: a world that I can make on my own.