Darren Shan's Blog, page 15

Catching up with old friends

I had a lovely online reunion yesterday with these two girls -- who are now young women in their mid-twenties! You might recognise the photo if you've ever checked out my Wikipedia page -- it was on there for a long time, before someone removed it, and you can still find it on Wikimedia Commons. In 2011, Nathalie and Freja flew from Sweden, where they were living at the time, to come to one of my events in the UK, at the Surrey Libraries' Children's Book festival, which is where this photo w...

Christmas Day video

It's my Christmas Day speech to the world!! Want to watch me waffle on for 7 minutes, chatting about what I got up to last year, what I'm planning for 2024, and when I'm having my Christmas dinner?!? Of course you do!!! You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UObTm... MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!!! 

Twas the Night… 2023

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the flatNot a creature was stirring, not even a cat.The black bags were hung outside by the lifts,In the hope that old Santa would drop off some gifts.The children were playing on their iPad,Ignoring the cries of their poor Mum and Dad.“To bed,” they both cried, “children, to bed!”To which the kids snorted, “We’ll sleep when we’re dead!”When out on the roof of a 7-Eleven,Something came clattering down from the heavens.Off to the windo...

Shanta reminder 2023

Christmas is almost upon us, and if you haven't yet read my SHANTA CLAUS short story, this would be as good a time as any, before it goes back into storage for another year... Shanta is a story on my website that first appeared more than 20 years ago, and is set just after the end of Tunnels Of Blood. I update it every year, and it's the only place in the official Darren Shan universe where you'll find Lord Loss rubbing shoulder with Mr Crepsley and B Smith! Just don't take it TOO seriously!...

Chat with Darren Shan

"I had an interesting chat with Darren Shan this afternoon on Zoom! I discovered the Larten Crepsley saga many years after reading the Darren Shan saga and I was so pleased to read more about Mr Crepsley's story." That was a quote from a lady called ABBY, who took part in a small group chat with me and another lady called ARRA earlier today. For 40 minutes I was all theirs, chatting to them from the room where I've had my office for the past year (see the photo, which I took just moments be...

Buzzfeed - 22 stinkers

While the Cirque Du Freak movie has plenty of fans (it does! honestly!!), there's no denying that lots of people dislike it too, especially if they'd read my books first and were dismayed by the way the film-makers played fast and loose with the plots and characters in the novels. It cropped up again in a recent(ish) article on BUZZFEED, entitled: 22 Book To Movie Adaptations That Really Disappointed The Readers. (A rather odd number of movies to pick, in my opinion -- why not stick to the s...

Hungary Volume 2 pre-order

Heads up, Hungarian fans!!! The pre-order link for the SIGNED, NUMBERED, LIMITED edition of ARCHIBALD LOX VOLUME 2 will go live at 20:20 (8.20pm) Hungarian time TONIGHT!!! The limited edition of Volume 1 sold out within two hours, so my advice is to get into the online store precisely on time if you want to make sure you don't miss out this time round! That's a photo of me with Volume 1, along with a snap of the signed page from the limited edition of that book. Here's the link for t...

BookLife Prize - Father of the Future

On a whim, I decided to enter my latest Darren Dash novel, Father Of The Future, into the BookLife Prize which Publishers Weekly run each year. I didn't have any expectation of winning any prizes with it (which was good, because I didn't!), but I was curious to see what their judges would make of it. Overall they liked it -- it scored 7.5 and included some nice feedback such as: "Dash's effervescent text not only evokes time and place, it also manages to incorporate fascinating figures from ...

Surprise from Korea!

Did you ever have one of those days where you're idly looking for some of your books on Amazon, when you suddenly spot covers for Korean editions of those books that you never knew existed?!? I'd had a very nice day, and gone to meet a lovely guy called Padraig, who'd bought the perk on my Terrified Troll campaign allowing him to hang out with me for a couple of hours in Limerick. (If you haven't yet heard about that, do a quick search for INDIEGOGO TERRIFIED TROLL DARREN SHAN to find out al...

Some Troll perks almost SOLD OUT

Heads up, Shansters!!! Some of the PERKS in my Terrified Troll campaign are almost SOLD OUT, so if you're thinking of snagging one, you'd better act fast!! Only ONE copy of the Terrified Troll Drafts PORTFOLIO remains up for grabs. And there are only TWO copies of the handwritten Terrified Troll POEM left to buy. (That's budding author Beatriz Damil in the photo, who bought one of the poems a while back and was delighted when it arrived in perfect time for Christmas!) And again, ther...