Christopher Paolini was born on November 17, 1983 in Southern California. He has lived most of his life in Paradise Valley, Montana with his parents and younger sister, Angela. The tall, jagged Beartooth Mountains rise on one side of Paradise Valley. Snowcapped most of the year, they inspired the fantastic scenery in Eragon.

Christopher Paolini is the author of the Inheritance saga (Eragon, Eldest, Brsinger, and the final chapter, Inheritance, releasing on November 8, 2011). Homeschooled for his entire life, he graduated high school at the age of 15 through an accredited correspondence course. Following graduation he started work on what would become the novel Eragon and its two sequels, all set in Alagaesia. At the age of nineteen he became a New York Times bestselling author.

In 2002, Eragon was published privately by his parents. To promote the book, Paolini toured over 135 schools and libraries, discussing reading and writing, all the while dressed in “a medieval costume of red shirt, billowy black pants, lace-up boots, and a jaunty black cap.”

Paolini originally self-published the book and publicized it on local tours. Incidentally, he gave a speech at Carl Hiaasen’s stepson’s school and Hiaasen enjoyed the book so much, he told his publisher, Knopf. An offer was made by Knopf for Eragon and the rest of the Inheritance trilogy. After another round of editing, the second edition of Eragon was published in August 2003.

With regard to his prose, Paolini has said, “In my writing, I strive for a lyrical beauty somewhere between Tolkien at his best and Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.”