The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm by Christopher Paolini

Goodreads synopsis: A wanderer and a cursed child. Spells and magic. And dragons, of course.

Welcome back to the world of Alagaësia. It’s been a year since Eragon departed Alagaësia in search of the perfect home to train a new generation of Dragon Riders. Now he is struggling with an endless sea of tasks: constructing a vast dragonhold, wrangling with suppliers, guarding dragon eggs, and dealing with belligerent Urgals and haughty elves. Then a vision from the Eldunarí, unexpected visitors, and an exciting Urgal legend offer a much-needed distraction and a new perspective. This volume features three original stories set in Alagaësia, interspersed with scenes from Eragon’s own unfolding adventure. Included is an excerpt from the memoir of the unforgettable witch and fortune-teller Angela the herbalist . . . penned by Angela Paolini, the inspiration for the character, herself! Relish the incomparable imagination of Christopher Paolini in this thrilling new collection of stories based in the world of the Inheritance Cycle.

My rating: 3 stars.

Content warnings: PG-13. Fantasy violence and war images.

(Spoilers for The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm. And probably the whole Inheritance Cycle.)

Thoughts: Murtagh is back, and I am happy.

Okay, obviously not completely, but it was totally worth reading if just for the one chapter with Murtagh back in the story. And I'm a sucker for his character, so I'll probably be easily pulled into any of Paolini's future books if just for the promise that he'll probably show up again.

Other than that I don't think the book was anything super special? There was sort of an overarching narrative to the "stories" that pulled them together more than I had expected and that was nice. But there wasn't really much that made them special. They were decent, but it was just as well without them too. It could have been interesting to see more of Eragon and the work of building a community of humans, elves, dwarfs, and urgals. But those bits were little and not the focus of the book. It was still nice to have them, but the rest of the book was just some worldbuilding, and even if it was interesting, it wasn't really a story.

It's not a bad little read, but it's not anything super impressive either. Probably worth a read if you enjoyed Paolini's other books, but otherwise it's not really anything special.