Christopher Paolini

So this is a first time for that.

And so far I'm enjoying it.

Thank you for having me.

It's been an absolute pleasure.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Christopher Paolini, and I am the author of Aragon and the other novels in the Inheritance Cycle.

This year, I have a very large science fiction novel coming out called To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which is releasing on September 15th.

As a reader myself, I do love speculative fiction.

I love reading about dragons.

I love reading about science fiction.

Ultimately, if a story is good, that's what matters to me.

I enjoy speculative fiction, and I do call it speculative fiction because that encompasses what we would call otherwise science fiction or fantasy, but also things that even sort of border that, like horror or supernatural elements.

But I write in those genres because it provides me with the greatest creative freedom as a writer.

Within speculative fiction, anything is possible, and the most powerful aspect of that is that it allows you to externalize things

that would otherwise be internal for the characters.

And that's an incredibly useful and powerful tool as a writer.

I am Lev Grossman.

I am the author of The Magician's Books, a trilogy of fantasy fiction, and most recently The Silver Arrow, a novel for children.

You know, fantasy is going through this nice sort of growing up period where it just opens out to the possibilities and the richness that diversity can bring.

And it's not alone in doing that, but it's definitely doing it.