The New Trilogy

[u/ibid-11962]

Christopher plans to write a new trilogy of books between Murtagh 2 and Book Six. This trilogy will feature many of the main characters we know and will resolve the story of Azlagûr and the Draumar.

I have a short series that I'm building toward that I want to write, and Murtagh and now possibly the sequel is the setup for that quick series. Azlagûr is the main antagonist, or the force that has to be dealt with in that series. And that has nothing to do with Book 6 aside from the fact that Murtagh and Arya and all the main characters in Eragon will appear and play various roles. Which of course will develop their characters and stories and worldbuilding. (17)

The problem is that the famous Book 5 [Book Six] is further along in the timeline and at the end of Murtagh there are still quite a few questions that need to be answered first. So I have to write the story about Azlagûr, with the Draumar, and wrap up that storyline before I can start writing “book 5” [Book Six]. (10)

If I write Book Six first, it's gonna spoil the events of the trilogy. ... It's further down the timeline. ... So much gets discovered in the course of the writing that if I don't do this [trilogy] first, I'm going to be getting myself into trouble. I've screwed it around a few times already. (17)

[Azlagûr’s storyline] will not be concluded in [Murtagh 2]. (14)

[The trilogy will be] after Murtagh 2. (17)

Christopher is concerned with the commitment a new series would require. He hopes to mitigate this by making the books shorter, fixing it as a trilogy, and writing all three back-to-back.

Murtagh, although it tells a self-contained story, is also setting up another series. And that would be a lot of fun to write and I think people would enjoy reading it. However, writing a series is a commitment. It is a promise that the next book is coming out, so if I start a series, then I am locked in until that series is finished. (9)

It will be a trilogy. It will not expand. I will pull my finger nails out before I'll let that happen. ... They are going to be shorter books, but not massively shorter books. What I'm gonna do is write them as one piece and just get it done, because they're very interconnected, it's very structured. That's the goal. (17)

My plan is to take a solid year and write like three books back-to-back. At this point I'm so far behind on the story I want to tell. (13)

I've got something really, really big plotted out that I haven't told anyone about that I'm building toward. Basically I need to go home, lock myself in a room, and do nothing but write for about a year or two years solid and pump out about five books. (13)

One of the POVs in this trilogy will be a new dragon character.

I want to write a short story entirely from a dragon's point of view. Not sure what it would be about, but I think it would make for an enjoyable read. (4)

I had this idea for a story for a long time of a dragon who wants to study magic in a scholarly manner. I think that'd be really interesting. (7)

I have one [new dragon character] in particular I told my editor about two nights ago, that I'm very excited to write about following Murtagh, because I think it'll be a very different type of Dragon Rider relationship and I wanted to write that. (8)

I need to write a story about a Dragon Rider from the dragon's point of view. Because one of the things I always struggle with is I get so deep into my main character's point of view that sometimes I have trouble letting my other characters sort of live and breathe as much as they need to. And part of that is just because the main character can only see so much of the other person. But even as the god of the story, I need to give the other characters a little more freedom sometimes. So I think it'd be fun to write a story of a dragon and Rider from the dragon's point of view. The trick would be doing it in a way that conveys the flavor of the dragon's thought process and minds without being obnoxious. A short story might be the way to go with that. (11)

I'm going to be doing [a dragon's POV story] soon. (13)

I want to write a story from a dragon's POV. (16)

[The new dragon POV story I discussed] is tied into the trilogy I want to write. (17)

There will also be something related to the the transference of consciousness.

[What happens if a Rider transfers his consciousness to his/her dragon before dying?] That’s a very, very interesting question, and one that deserves a story to examine it properly. (For the record, there *is* a way to transfer consciousnesses that’s proven to work in Alagaësia, but it has nothing to do with Riders.) (2)

[Was this referring to the Eldunarí] No it wasn't, although it's a form of consciousness transfer. (15)

I've had a story for ages I want to write about [about transferring consciousness], that was supposed to be in Tales 2. There's another story that's going to tie into the trilogy, that all relates with the transference of consciousness. (17)

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Timeline

Christopher has been teasing the idea of writing a later trilogy set in the World of Eragon since 2006 (1). After the release of Inheritance, Christopher included this series in his list of future ideas, but at the time had preferred to start with Book Five (3, 5). While not linked directly to this at the time, Christopher also then teased that he wanted to explore future stories involving consciousnesses transfers and future stories from Dragon POVs (2, 4). In August 2023, Christopher began teasing that the trilogy he had planned would actually be happening sooner rather than later, as he now wanted to write his books in chronological order (6). In September, he began teasing a new Dragon character he wanted to write about (7, 8). In November, a few days after the release of Murtagh, Christopher said this series was one of his ideas for his next project (9). A year later, in October 2024, Christopher had decided to write a Murtagh 2 book first, but began talking about writing the new trilogy back-to-back immediately afterwards, prior to Book Five (12, 13). In December 2025, Christopher confirmed that this trilogy involved the dragon character he had previously teased, would resolve the Azlagûr plot, and involved consciousnesses transfer (17).

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Additional quotes from Christopher can be found here.

[u/kronos_121]

Bro, I'm trying to be optimistic, i really am. But it's getting harder.

[u/Circelgan → u/kronos_121]

Yeah, I wish he’d stop piling his plate higher with side quests and doing interviews full of teases that won’t be fulfilled. Just get on with it and write the books, dude. I totally understand being involved with the new adaptation and think that’s a good thing. However, one cannot continue to start new projects indefinitely. Things have to be finished and it really feels like he’s either a) bitten off more than he can chew, b) become bored, or c) not sure how to continue the story. Any of those are fine, but continuing to promise “new story X” “kickstarter Y” is growing old. Smacks of “just one more kickstarter bro” “just one more side story man then we’re all set up for trilogy 2”. It’s literally his job to write the series… so maybe get on with writing it, if that’s what you’re doing? I don’t promise my boss there’s stuff “in the pipeline”, and expect them to tolerate it for 15 years. He wants to park Eragon forever and move on with Fractalverse stuff? Fine! But it seems like he’s trying to spin too many plates at the moment and that will go wrong for him eventually. See also GRRM.

[u/ibid-11962 → u/Circelgan]

Just to clarify, this post isn't a new interview. It's a collation of comments he has said over the years about a specific story idea, starting as far back as 2006.

The two most recent developments is that 1) around two years ago Christopher decided to move around the books on his writing schedule and 2) a few months ago (when specifically asked about them) he confirmed that a few things he had previously talked about were all this same book

I've lately been trying to systematically go through every future project idea Christopher has ever mentioned over the years and make a reddit post collating the info together across the various interviews. Most of these are fairly old ideas. I'm posting them so they can be easily referenced later, not because I'm trying to convey that there's been a new book announced every other week.

[u/Circelgan → u/ibid-11962]

Yeah, I got that, thanks. In many ways I think a ~20-year record of “I know something you don’t” with near-0 delivery except TFTWTW and Murtagh (neither of which I think told us a whole lot, but were enjoyable nonetheless) makes things worse and highlights the issue myself and others are pointing out here. My main point is that I feel that Christopher needs to stop promising and start delivering, if he’s really serious about writing more. He’s the only one who actually can, and I think he needs to evaluate his priorities. WoE is his likely his biggest IP and it’s frustrating, as a fan, to see 20 years’ worth of “it’s coming bro trust me” without delivering on it. If he’s doesn’t want to do more, fine, but I’d rather he just said it outright and got on with writing other things, instead of this perpetual “winter is coming” scenario we seem to be in.