Darren Shan's Blog, page 10

Librarian love letter

A Shanster called MORGAN was pleased to spot some of my books in their local library, and took a couple of photos to share with me. Coolio!!! I've been very lucky to enjoy great support from librarians all around the world over the years. When my agent was struggling to sell Cirque Du Freak back in 1997, one of the reasons given by some of the editors at the various publishing houses was that they feared librarians would rise up in arms against the book, since it was so much darker than any ...

A brace of Festie memes

It's been AGES since I shared any Cirque Du Freak memes, so let's correct that right away! These are both by a Tweeter with the handle of FESTIE. (Used to be FestivalOfTheUndead, or some such variation!) The OFFICE meme dates back quite a while, but Festie only shared the LAST SUPPER one this week -- and I think it's an absolutely cracker!! Festie's title for the second one, which made me chuckle almost as much as the image did, was “One of you will stick a knife into Gavner Purl tonight...

YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE…?

I *might* have shared this one with you before, but I don't *think* I have!!! Basically it's a podcast from nearly 3 years ago, called YOU KNOW WHAT I LIKE...? They covered lots of books and movies, and spent one episode talking just about Cirque Du Freak, which both of the hosts -- Mark and Sophie -- were big fans of in their teens. They went back and refamiliarised themselves with the books ahead of the podcast, then chatted about their thoughts. They're not always gushing in their praise,...

April issue of the Shanville Monthly

I was so busy having fun with my April Fool's Day post yesterday (go back and check it out if you missed it!) that I didn't mention that the April issue of my online monthly newsletter is now LIVE. The major news items revolve around the optioning of my Demonata series (it includes no fewer than four different entries) but I have plenty of other items to report on too, including... if you're quick, you can pick up the eBook of the weirdest novel I've ever written for just $0.99... you ca...

Cirque Du Sheeran!!

In the world of movie/TV adaptations, things usually move at a snail's pace. But sometimes something happens that allows a project to explode -- and that's happened in the last few weeks with Cirque Du Freak!!! As I've said before, Cirque Du Freak has been under option for quite a while now, the plan being to turn it into a TV show. A team in America has been working on the scripts and getting it to a point where they could pitch it to the major players. I've been very hands-off throughout t...

The Ray Foley Show

The Ray Foley Show on Today FM is one of the biggest radio shows in Ireland, and I was delighted to be invited on last month to chat about my books and the Demonata TV option news. I was only meant to be on it for 2 or 3 minutes, but Ray is really into books and got carried away, and we ended up chatting for ten minutes! Thankfully it's been podcasted, so you can listen to the interview in full by clicking on this link: https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/ray-......

CBR - 10 fantasy films in need of a reboot

CBR ran an article a while back* called 10 Fantasy Movies That Deserve A Series Reboot. I was very pleased to see Cirque Du Freak listed among them -- it actually occupied the #2 slot. You can check out what they had to say about it, and what else made the list, by clicking on the following link: https://www.cbr.com/fantasy-movies-th... As I've mentioned a few times here over the last couple of years, Cirque Du Freak act...

An Other Place - March 2024 sale

Most of you are probably aware that I have released several books for adults under the name of Darren Dash. Until very recently, the eBooks have only been available on Kindle, but I have now broadened out their reach to include Apple, B&N, Google Play, Kobo, Smashwords and other sites -- in effect, you should now be able to buy them through the eBook store of your choice. (But the paperback editions can still only be bought through Amazon stores worldwide -- sorry.) I'm going to highlight th...

Laois Live

There was a very nice article on the Laois Live website, with news of the TV option that I've agreed for my Demonata series. The information is spliced together from various posts that myself and the adpators have posted in recent weeks, but it edits them down succinctly, picking out the key details. So, if this is coming as complete news to you, this is a handy way of getting up to speed swiftly and efficiently! :-) https://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/a......

Revisiting Lord Loss

Here's a photo of me taken last week, with the two young film-makers who are hoping to adapt The Demonata into a TV show. That's Ijaz on the left (my right) and Max on the right (my left). Ive spent the last few days skim-reading Lord Loss, returning to it for the first time in 19 years or thereabouts. In an attempt to pin down the perfect structure for the adaptation, I'm reading through books 1, 2 and 4 (Lord, Loss, Demon Thief, Bec) and jotting down a brief summary of what happens in each...