Inheritance Cycle

On Monday, fans on the Alagaesia network were notified by email, “Kvetha Fricaya! Be sure to visit Alagaesia.com tomorrow, Tuesday, October 30th, for an exciting announcement about the Inheritance series!” Random House Children’s Books had two very big announcements about Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Trilogy.

The first is something that fans have been waiting for ever since thr release of Eldest, and perhaps even Eragon. The third, so far untitled, book will be released in the United States on 23 September 2008.

What was not expected was the authors announcement that The Inheritance Trilogy is now the The Inheritance Cycle. Four books, instead of the of planned three, will be printed.

“I plotted out the Inheritance series as a trilogy nine years ago, when I was fifteen. At that time, I never imagined I’d write all three books, much less that they would be published” said Paolini. “When I finally delved into Book Three, it soon became obvious that the remainder of the story was far too big to fit in one volume. Having spent so long thinking about the series as a trilogy, it was difficult for me to realize that, in order to be true to my characters and to address all of the plot points and unanswered questions Eragon and Eldest raised, I needed to split the end of the series into two books.”

Why is this significant to more then the fans? Simple. The NY Times Best selling series is what Harry Potter is for Scholastic, on a lesser scale. They bring a lot income for the publishing companies.

According to the press release, “In its first week on sale in North America in August 2005, Eldest sold more than 425,000 hardcover copies, making Eldest the greatest single-week sale ever recorded for a Random House Children’s Books title.”

Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, which is printed on the covers of each, is a division of Random House and they are also publishers of Philip Pullman’s controversial series His Dark Materials and a variety of Tamora Pierce’s works. The company has been using the three authors to propel a campaign for fans of one author to read them all and hopes that the success of any of the books will lead to the success of all of them. 

 

Intelligent move? We know that the success of Eragon did not hurt the chances for The Golden Compass to get movie rights. Lets see what the three will do for the future of printed material, which some believe is a dying art form (a foolish idea if one were to look at the unmatched and unprecedented success of these books and others as of late).

Anti-Gay Church Punished

The Westboro Baptist Church, a religious group that have been anti-gay for years, has been sentenced by a to pay a hefty fine for invasion of privacy.

The church, who started out only going to funerals of AIDS victims, made the mistake to start going to funerals of dead soldiers to picket. The signs they carried often read, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God Hates Fags,” and “Your Going To Hell.”

The propagandist group have been told to pay $10.9 million dollars in damages to the father of Lance Matthew Snyder, a soldier who died March 2006 while serving in Iraq.

The group will appeal the decision saying they have the right to invade a private funeral because of the first amendment, which brings up a very important and controversial question. What kind of line is between invasion of privacy and freedom of speech.

A group certainly has the right to say whatever they want, but doesn’t that end in private affairs. Then again, is a funeral a private affair? Especially one that is in honor of a soldier. Either way, their argument for free speech does not make much sense.

The group goes to funerals to send a message, being gay is wrong and people are dying in Iraq as a consequence. Forgive me for my stupidity, but what does one have to do with the other. We are not in Iraq because of homosexuality. It is like saying I don’t like the government, so lets kill a whole bunch of innocent people. Or even, I think the children are the future so lets cut funding to schools. When did double-speak become a social norm for logic. Who taught these idiots logic?

The Cat That Could Save Us All

Cinnamon, no not the food, but the cat from Missouri, has just been helped cats become added to the 2 dozen mammals whose DNA has been almost completely decoded.

 

Why is this important? Simple. The National Cancer Institute claims that cats have over 200 hundred sicknesses that can be compared to human illnesses, including AIDS, SARS, and Diabetes. Now that scientist can tell how cells are affected in cats, it may be easier to cure the disease in the mammal. If that does happen, the same or similar procedure can be done with humans.

 According the AP article by Malcolm Ritter, “The new work identified 20,285 genes in the cat, probably about 95 percent of the animal’s full complement, O’Brien said. That’s similar to the 20,000-25,000 genes estimated for humans.”

The AP did not make clear how researchers experiment on cats DNA, but since Cinnamon is alive and well, it does not seem that it is harmful. And if they are looking for a cure in both felons and humans, I doubt that they want to harm the cats.

Lets hope that felons, along with the dozens of other animals, can help cure the diseases that are so far incurable.