Literary Rock Star
A few days ago I heard Christopher Paolini, author of epic fantasy novels Eragon and Eldest, give a lecture as part of the promotional tour for Eldest, the second book in a planned trilogy. Only twenty-one years old now, he said he wrote the first draft of Eragon at age 15. His parents helped him rewrite the tome and then self-publish it, and it was the family's relentless promotional efforts that lead to a book contract for Eragon with a major book publisher, which facilitated the incredible success the work has experienced so far.
The introduction of Paolini set my teeth on edge a bit, as the Philadephia Free Library representative who made it noted that "boys like the sword fights, while girls fall in love with the dragons." That kind of gendered dualist thinking isn't very helpful, especially not to the bright, energetic and slightly quirky adolescents that seem to be the trilogy's primary target audience, at least as evidenced by the overflow crowd that had come to hear Paolini speak. One of the main characters in Eragon, and the only dragon of any importance in that book, Saphira, is female. Paolini plays with sexist stereotyping in Eragon a little, and it was a shame that his efforts were slightly undermined by this introduction.
But Paolini was terrific; smart, funny, and engaging, and the crowd understandably adored him. I waited almost two hours in a very long line afterwards to get some books signed, and though he must have been exhausted, he was friendly and nice and exchanged a few words with every person who proffered a book.
The wait just to get into the lecture was a long one, and I overheard a lot of conversations suggesting that more than a few Eragon fans felt that they were intellectually superior to Harry Potter fans. Paolini was asked about his views on Harry Potter during a question-and answer session immediately after his lecture, and he replied that he thought the Harry Potter books were wonderful, and had great praise for J.K. Rowling. How I loved him for this!
One thing Paolini accomplishes that Rowling cannot do as easily as an adult is, in addition to fostering a love of reading, which Rowling does without question, he helps kids believe that they can WRITE books too.
Read Eragon if you haven't! If you like it, you'll find Eldest even better.