Darren Shan's Blog, page 12

Ecstasy Radio

If you missed the live broadcast last week of my appearance on ECSTASY RADIO, not to worry, because it's up on YouTube, free for you to listen to whenever you wish -- hurrah!!! The DJ, DOC, is a big fan of my books, and was as thrilled to have me on the show as I was to be on it. That isn't always the case with radio shows, where the presenters are often talking about subjects and people completely out of their sphere of interest, so it made for a very nice, informed discussion. We were only...

Bernard Reads - Tunnels of Blood review

THIS IS A RFEVIEW THAT APPEARED ON FACEBOOK, FROM A FAN/REVIEWER CALLED BERNARD CATAM. I could still remember the ending of the last book. And reading this reminds me that Darren Shan has changed a lot since the first book when it comes to perspective yet he still has A LOT to learn about vampires such as politics and heirarchy introduced in this book. As always, trivial matters like cat's blood bad for vampires are what amazed me with details for this Saga. Book 3 is both "Vampires in t...

The pain of being a Shanster

I was greeted with this post on Facebook today, from a fan called MELISSA who is nearing the end of my Archibald Lox series: "Darren...why do you like tormenting your readers? I'm reading volume three of Archibald Lox and I was thrilled that [REDACTED] was helping Inez and Archie (who I adore dearly) escape, but no. It reminded me of the chapter in Killers of the Dawn where Mr Crepsley was 'rescued' from the stakes. You're a cruel man Mr Shan... I just thought I'd let you know." Heh heh!...

Lord Loss - Phoenix Project review

I posted a review of Demon Thief yesterday, which appears on THE PHOENIX PROJECT -- then realised I never posted the link to their review for the first book in the series, Lord Loss! Doh!!! So here it is: https://phoenix-prjct.com/2024/01/13/... On my website, I publish author notes for all of my books (although I've fallen a bit behind in recent years, and haven't done it for a last few). ...

Demon Thief - Phoenix Projext review

A lovely review for Demon Thief, book 2 of my Demonata series, over on THE PHOENIX PROJECT. https://phoenix-prjct.com/2024/01/22/... Demon Thief was the key to the entire series. Although the second published, it was actually the sixth Demonata book that I wrote. I was having trouble figuring out how to structure the series, and was thinking I might have to set aside Bec (which was the second book ...

February 2024 competition winners

I've drawn the winners for the February Father Of The Future competition. This one stirred up a lot of interest and I had more entries than usual, which was nice to see. Most were sent in by people living in the USA, UK and Ireland, but there were also quite a lot of entries from fans in Hungary, Canada, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, plus some from other countries, such as Norway, Sweden, Mexico, Dubai, Oman, Australia, New Zealand, Japan... There really ARE Shansters pretty much every...

Father of the Future - Readers Favorite reviews

Father of the Future, the sci-fi book I released last year under the name of Darren Dash, picked up not one, not two, but a trio of 5 star reviews from READERS' FAVORITE reviewers! Very nice comments from the reviewers included such gems as... "Dash excels at building a futuristic dystopia that embraces and exaggerates some of the hotly debated societal issues of the world today..." "The book serves as both a cautionary tale and a compelling adventure that resonates with contemporary dis...

Three Little Pigs

I read Three Little Pigs recently, the third DCI Kett book by Alex Smith, and ripped through it at top speed. The first two books in the series were very enjoyable, but this took things to a different level, building on them expertly and delivering perfect payoffs to some big questions rasied in the first couple, not least of which was -- what the hell happened to Kett's wife?!? It moved swiftly, with rarely a pause for breath, and although it has the cute factor of the detective's three young d...

Orion and the Dark

Friday is Daddy and Daughter day in my neck of the woods. I take Gaia for swimming lessons after her pre-school finishes, then we go for a McDonalds. In good weather we hit a park after that, but we haven't been doing that much this time of the year. Today we had to pick up my son Dante from school (Mrs Shan was at the hairdresser's). When we got home, Gaia suggested that she and I watch a film called Brian And The Dark. (Dante hurried upstairs to play on my Meta Quest. He's much more into gamin...

February 2024 competition reminder

If you haven't yet entered my February COMPETITION, you have a few days still to play with -- it doesn't close until the end of play next Tuesday. An EXTREMELY rare copy of Father Of The Future (my latest Darren Dash novel for adults) is up for grabs -- one of only five copies of an ultra-limited collector's edition that I created from from proof copies!! Each of the five books also features my most idiosyncratic date EVER!! Basically, whenever I write a message in a book, I like to date it ...