Darren Shan's Blog, page 176

Tattoo Tuesday

This week's Tattoo Tuesday comes to us courtesy of a fan called Ashley -- and it's fair to say she's got some neck, as we say here in Ireland and the UK! ("You've got some neck!" means "You've got some nerve!") She took my most-tattooed quote, but really upped the ante, both by its size and where she placed it. Safe to say, it's not going to escape the attention of any vampire or vampaneze who decides to do a bit of Dracula-style neck-biting... :-)   Shanster tattoos have been flooding i...

Can E tempt you?!?

A fan called Eytan recently posted a photo of his Zom-B collection. He has the American hardcovers, which look lovely when stacked together neatly, but what especially caught my eye was the cover of Zom-B Circus on his tablet. (It's a short novel that I wrote as an addition to my Zom-B series, and is only available as a low-cost ebook.)   I know a lot of readers love the physicality of printed books, and don't like to dabble with ebooks, partly (sometimes largely) because their collectio...

Shower of clowns!

I'm guessing most of you are familiar with that little quote that you often find in offices worldwide -- "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!"   Well, there's a lesser known version of the line that runs something like this -- "You don't have to be crazy to be part of the Shan Clan, but it helps!"   Newcomer Gaia better get with the programme quick, or she's in for a long and bemusing stay in Shanville...   :-) :-)  

The defense rests!

A fan pointed me towards an article over on The Artifice web site recently, called Scary Stories: In Defense of Horror for Children. My books aren't mentioned in the piece, but it's an interesting essay about how horro can be beneficial for kids. The fan thought I might be interested, and I was, and I think you might be too, if you're a fan of the genre like me. If so, you can check it out here: https://the-artifice.com/scary-storie...

D.E.A.R. books…

It's D.E.A.R. day in many countries across the world today -- D.E.A.R. stands, of course, for Drop Everything And Read. At midday local time, many teachers and students -- along with anyone else who wants to get involved -- will be putting all other considerations aside for half an hour or thereabouts, to pick up a book and read. It's a cool little initiative, and while it would be great to have a worldwide D.E.A.R. day every week, we'll settle for once a year if we have to, safe in the knowl...

Pay attention!

A fan of my books called Ryan was reading one of his textbooks in school recently and was nicely surprised to spot a familiar cover attached to one of the articles...   The book was called The Publishing Business, and I'm including a photo of its cover -- both photos were kindly supplied by Ryan.   For those who might be unaware, all 12 volumes of The Saga Of Darren Shan/Cirque Du Freak series were adapted into a manga edition. It was originally released in Japan, then translated an...

Two sides of a coin

Since Darren and Steve are kind of like yin and yang in my Cirque Du Freak books, I thought it would be nice to pair these drawings of them by two different fans.   The first, of Steve, is by a fan called Flynn, and kind of sums up Steve in two simple but enlightening sentences.   The one of Darren (with a close-up of his hand to show Madam Octa in a bit more detail) is by Frankie, who thought it would be amusing to draw him/me in 1980s garb, since that's the time when the first boo...

Tattoo Tuesday

I'm pleased to present another Tattoo Tuesday post, but this week's is a beautiful but somewhat sombre offering. It was sent to me by a fan called Danni Louise, and it incorporates my most famous quote -- "Even in death may you be triumphant" -- with a drawing by a friend of hers. Her friend committed suicide a few years back, and Danni Louise decided to honour him by combining one of his drawings with the sadly appropriate post. I feel very touched that she chose that particular quote for su...

Four of Five

There was a lovely mention for my first published novel for adults, Procession of the Dead, over on a YouTube post recently, by vlogger Samuel Davis. He posted a video in which he talks about five books that changed his life -- called, appropriately enough, 5 Books That Changed My Life! He chats about how he grew up on The Saga Of Darren Shan, but if he had to pick just one book, it would be Procession. The language gets a bit salty in places (F bombs get dropped!) but Samuel has a very amusi...

Trip to the fair

I've posted up quite a few photos of my new daughter, Gaia, over the last couple of weeks. There are plenty more to come, of course, but today I'm celebrating my other mini-monster, Dante, with a few pics from a trip we made to the funfair shortly before his sister's birth.   The fair in question was Fundamania - http://fundamania.ie/ - a travelling funfair. There were lots of stomach-flipping rides, most of which were for older children, but a nice few for the smaller kids too. We went...