It is a little disappointing to find that Christopher Paolini isn't dressed up as a medieval bard when I meet him. But such are the rewards of being a literary sensation.
The red doublet, billowy black trousers and jaunty hat he wore to get noticed when he toured 135 American bookshops and libraries to promote his first — self-published — fantasy book are no longer necessary.
“Now that the book has reached a wider audience, I don't have to do that any more. Thankfully.''
The “wider audience'' is the more than 15 million people who have bought Eragon and Eldest, the first two books in his Inheritance Cycle series of fantasy books.
When Brisingr, the third of four, went on sale recently, 45,000 copies were sold on the first day in Britain alone.
Paolini wrote his first book about Eragon — a farm boy who finds a dragon's egg and, as one of the fabled Dragon Riders of Alagaesia, goes on to take on an evil empire — when he was just 15.
By the time he was 19, he was on the New York Times bestsellers' list. Now 24, he remains the swords-and-sorcery devotee who invented his own elf language, makes chainmail in his spare time and built a hobbit hole in his back garden in Montana.
It must be reassuring for the fans that instead of some aloof, cool author, he is one of them.
Paolini, who still lives at home with his parents, says he is “constantly amazed'' by his phenomenal success and this doesn't seem like false modesty.
“When I started Eragon, I was really trying to please myself as a fantasy reader. I thought maybe my parents would read the book and maybe my sister, if I was lucky,'' he says.
He “honestly has no idea'' about why he has been so successful, though he offers a few clues. After the Lord of the Rings films and Harry Potter, he admits that the timing couldn't have been better for his books.
But he also puts the fantasy renaissance down to computer technology which allows filmmakers to catch up with writers' imaginations.
Relating to his readers
While many other writers tried unsuccessfully to catch that same wave, what evidently set Paolini apart was his closeness in age and interests to the mid-teen readers he was chasing.
Eragon's central relationship with his dragon companion, Saphira, is a “friendship that a lot of young people would like to have'', he says.
“I remember feeling frustrated that older authors didn't take characters my own age very seriously. I felt at the time if I were thrust into one of these stories — well, I could do better than that character.''
Even so, he has been accused of being derivative, particularly of J.R.R. Tolkien. It is a charge levelled at many writers in the swords-and-sorcery field and surely with good reason.
“Coming from the European fantasy tradition, these things have become ingrained in our consciousness,'' Paolini says.
“When I started Eragon, my goal was to take some of the basic fantasy elements ... and see where they take me. With each book, starting with these basic elements, I've been able to grow in new directions.''
Raised in modest circumstances in rural Montana, he and his sister were home-schooled. He loved fantasy literature but when he was 14, he read Anna Karenina.
“I read it and thought, ‘Oh, books can be more than just hack and slash'.'' His mother, a Montessori teacher, liked to read out Jane Austen's novels to them loud.
Having read a few books on how to write, Paolini decided to produce the fantasy book he had always wanted to read himself. His parents invested almost everything they had in publishing Eragon themselves.
Just in the nick of time
Nobody really took notice but just when it looked as though the Paolinis would have to sell their house, the stepson of the Florida thriller writer Carl Hiaasen read Eragon and loved it.
He told Hiaasen, who passed it to his publishers. An American publisher bought it for £250,000 and the tills have not stopped ringing since, especially after Eragon was turned into a film.
The Paolinis lived carefully in the lean years and apparently still do.
They might have traded up to a bigger house but home life, Christopher says, is “pretty sedate — boring if you will — I work at my computer and then I usually have to go do the dishes or vacuum or clean or something''.
He doesn't even own a car. “We try to live sensibly but I usually buy myself a treat with each of the books I've completed.''
The Paolinis haven't managed to keep their happy family life completely cocooned from his fame. Paolini finds it “odd'' having lots of fans.
His family has had to change its phone number thrice and move once because of over-enthusiastic fans. Some are girls (women make up 40 per cent of his readers).
“I got some marriage proposals — I try to answer those requests as politely as I can but it's certainly a strange experience,'' he says, looking uncomfortable.
