Tales from Alagaesia Volume 1: The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm by: Christopher and Angela Paolini

 

The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is a book that I honestly wasn’t going to read.  The Inheritance Cycle was a series that held some nostalgic value, reading the first two books as a kid and revisiting the entire cycle in 2022 made me realize just how little of the series I liked, largely staying at an average rating.  Christopher Paolini has written more and found fans in both fantasy and science fiction, returning to the world after seven years away with essentially two short stories, a framing story, and fractions of a novel presented as a short story from his sister Angela Paolini.  The afterword from Paolini is interesting as the original idea became the third story “The Worm of Kulkaras”, the first coming next, and the second being an opportunity given to Angela just to fill out what could be reasonably published, and still the published hardcover is almost pocket sized, is under 300 pages, and is formatted so there are less words on the page.  The frame story is the point of view of Eragon as he is shown or told three separate stories about other characters and cultures approximately a year after the events of Inheritance finished the story.

 

Eragon’s perspective has clearly grown since Paolini wrote Inheritance, certainly since writing Eragon.  The boy has grown up into a confident, wise adult existing in a challenge that he must overcome, one that he is honestly not quite suited for.  Eragon’s character archetype fits the epic hero since so much of The Inheritance Cycle drew on the monomyth and Star Wars’ interpretation specifically, so his fate at the end of Inheritance while fitting the monomyth means Paolini has to develop him for what comes next.  Paolini makes it clear that there is more for the character to do even if it’s quite clear he will not be the protagonist.  The interlude sequences are, however, where The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm really fall apart.  The bookends that open and close the book are great and clearly have a story to tell, but the connecting tissue of the in between segments feel almost entirely like an afterthought, just there because there needed to be something there.  Between the stories there are also these small time jumps that feel as if there are details completely absent that would have been present had this been a full-length novel.  It’s also kind of a problem, but kind of the point with Angela Paolini’s “On the Nature of Stars”.  It’s an interesting little short story, but also one that’s clearly meant to be read on its own and within the context of the character Angela, it’s dealing with truth, magic, and science after all, but it’s also perhaps the weakest of the three short stories because it doesn’t actually have much to say.  It’s a short story that thinks it’s being largely clever about saying nothing, though it’s at least well written, even if it isn’t Paolini.

 

“A Fork in the Road” actually showed a lot of promise as a short story as well, being actually written by Christopher Paolini.  “A Fork in the Road” is largely interested in showing some of the world after the tyranny of Galbatorix, something that Paolini actually excels at.  There is still evil in the world, not a central authoritarian evil, but almost normal, everyday nastiness of people from the simple bullying of a child to the adult extortion of others.  It’s a simple story, one that has a twist as to who the central character is (it’s Murtagh which is incredibly obvious in hindsight), but the simplicity is something that Paolini almost needed to show that he could do interesting things with the world.  Because it is the opening story, it’s the first thing that the reader has to immerse themselves back into this world so the simplicity actually works.  It allows the closing story, “The Worm of Kulkaras” to work even better as an exploration of Urgal culture and history.  The Urgals were clearly the stand-in for Tolkien’s orcs throughout The Inheritance Cycle and it wasn’t until the final installment Inheritance where they actually were given a fully deeper purpose.  This short story expands that and honestly allows Paolini to flex his more bardic side, as this is a story told through the mouth of a bard.  It’s a tale of slaying an evil dragon that feasts on Urgals, the titular worm, though shifts nicely into a tale about knowing when to retreat and accept ones own limits without feeling as if you are giving up.  Thematically it is also relevant to Eragon’s own task of healing the dragons in the Eldunari and the hatching of a new generation of dragons, the book ending with Eragon being informed of the first dragon hatching.

 

Overall, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm shows that Christopher Paolini’s growth as an author is something that has continued since 2011’s Inheritance.  The two stories he pens are genuinely great, although the struggle with the interludes and the middle story being more baffling than anything hold this one back.  There is a fifth installment in the series set after Inheritance released in 2023, something that I am definitely now checking out because it’s clear that Paolini’s growth will transfer to novel writing, but The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm is still a bit rocky.  It is at least a quick and easy read with enough charm to push it slightly above mediocrity.  6/10.