Random Acts of Listening: Christopher Paolini’s Launch Event
Welcome back to our friends in our audio division! Today’s look inside Christopher Paolini’s launch event for the final book in his Inheritance cycle comes to us from Katherine Fleming in Publicity.
On Tuesday, November 8, a crowd of 650 fans gathered at Barnes & Noble Union Square to meet Christopher Paolini and celebrate the final novel in the Inheritance cycle, Inheritance. Many in attendance have been fans of the series since its beginning eight years ago, with the publication of Eragon in 2003, and it was great to see such an excited crowd!
Christopher bounded onstage to raucous applause, and proceeded to tell the crowd stories from the early days of the series—from his first author events where he drove around to Montana schools and libraries with his father dressed in medieval garb, to being bitten by a fan’s sugar glider during a signing!
Christopher also introduced the crowd to his family and friends at Random House Children’s Books, bringing his sister onstage and introducing her as “Angela the Herbalist” (she inspired the well-loved character and contributed a wealth of botanical knowledge to the books), and coaxing his editor, Michelle Frey, copyeditor, and publicist Judith Haut onstage to thank them for all their work on the series over the years.
But Christopher had one more introduction to make—narrator Gerard Doyle read a selection from Inheritance and talked about how the final scenes moved him to tears in the recording studio. If you couldn’t make the event, you can check out his comments in the wrap-up video of the Inheritance launch below.
My mom is in the middle of this one on audio right now, and she says it’s amazing! I am sure she would have loved to be at that launch party if she could have been! I am also amazed that he was bitten by the sugar glider!