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Here Be Dragons

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Laist belatedly notes by way of Locus that Eldest, the sequel to Christopher Paolini's young adult fantasy Eragon, arrived in stores August 23rd and bumped Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince from its #1 spot on the Amazon US list.

Eragon, though well-plotted, was just heavy-handed enough in its prose style for us to pass on buying this one in hardcover. We are #123 in line for the copy of Eldest to be paged to our local library, but may be tempted to buy it if it doesn't arrive in a week or so. Paolini will be reading at Vroman's in Pasadena on September 15 at 6 pm. So far, this event is unticketed, and you can cut in the signing line by answering trivia questions about the unpronounceable world of Alagaesia.

Also noted: several copies of Eldest turned up in Iowa with 32 pages of Cornelia Funke's Inkspell, an unreleased young adult novel, interpolated into the story. (Thanks to fansite Shur'tugal for the link.) A clever device to piggyback (dragonback?) Funke's new book on the Eldest mania? Probably not, but all these young adult fantasies are starting to run together a bit.

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Now if they'd just publish Inkspell with an unreleased chapter of Harry Potter, Book 7...

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