Darren Shan's Blog, page 18

Five Nights At Freddy’s verdict

I went to see Five Nights at Freddy's with my 9-year-old son at the cinema. He enjoyed it a lot, though it was the first horror film he's ever been to, so he spent much of the time with his jumper pulled up over his head!!! Honestly!! It didn't do a whole lot for me -- it didn't seem to know what tone it wanted to set -- but I had a lot of fun watching Dante and comforting him!! Linking in with the film, there was a nice profile of Josh Hutcherson on the LOOPER website recently. It looked at...

Troll poem

As most of you HOPEFULLY know by now, I'm working on a picture book called The Terrified Troll, due for release next year. The artist, Eva Byrne, and I have launched a fundraiser to raise the money that we need to produce a numbered, limited edition printing of the book, before we hopefully go on to have it published in a more widely available format. The key perk in the fundraiser is a copy of the book (which you will have to pre-order, as the print run will be based on the orders we get). ...

NBC Josh Hutcherson

Five Nights At Freddy's is still going strong in the theatres -- my 9 year old son is VERY keen to see it, and in Ireland it has a 15A certificate, which means under 15's can go if accompanied by an adult, so it looks like the pair of us might be popping along to see it at some point over the coming weekend. Normally we take a few friends of his along wiht us, but I'm not sure what the etiquette is for inviting 9 years olds to the cinema to see a film more suited for 15 year olds!!! Hmmm... I'll...

Lettered Troll selling out

The fundraiser to help bring my picture book to life -- The Terrified Troll, which is being illustrated by a talented young artist called Eva Byrne -- is ticking along nicely. There's still loads of time to pre-order your copy of the signed, numbered, limited edition. (A quick reminder here thatr the book's print run will be based on the orders we get for it, so you HAVE TO pre-order it to secure a copy.) There are plenty of PERKS remaining too -- amazing PRINTS that Eva has created especially f...

Troll halfway there

I know I've posted a lot about my Terrified Troll picture book fundraiser recently, so I'll keep this brief. 1) Today we passed the 50% point, after just over a week of the fundraiser going live. That was absolutely amazing -- many, MANY thanks to everyone who has supported it so far, either by pre-ordering a copy of the book or one of the perks. 2) I've added a few new Meet Darren Shan perks, these ones without the dining option. This makes it both cheaper to meet up with me (prices sta...

Self-Publishing Father review

I've been so busy plugging my picture book fundraiser this last week (what?!? you haven't heard about it yet?!? do a search for THE TERRIFIED TROLL INDIEGOGO) that I kind of forgot to throw in an occasional plug for my latest Darren Dash release for adults -- a little time-travelled sci-fi tale called Father Of The Future. Whoops!!! Anyway, here I am to correct matters now with a link to a VERY positive review that the book picked up on SELF-PUBLISHING REVIEW, who said it was a "wildly creat...

Luke reviews CDF as an adult

A reviewer called LUKE W HENDERSON was a big fan of my books when he was a teenager. A decade later he decided to return to the series to see how they stood up when read from an adult's perspective, and to record his views for posterity. Here's a link to his review for the first book, and at the time of writing he has also reviewed the next six books in the series -- there are links for each of those at the bottom of the first review. https://medium.com/@lukewhenderson/re......

Revised fundraiser prices

OK, I’m going to be honest here — I boo-booed a bit with my Terrified Troll fundraiser!! It’s the first time I’ve ever run something like this, and even though Eva (the artist) and I spent AGES going over our figures and deciding how much to charge for our perks, it’s clear by the lack of uptake that we got the numbers wrong at the higher end of the scale!!The prices of the numbered and lettered editions of the book have gone down well with people, and we’re getting plenty of orders for those....

Shanville Monthly November 2023

The November issue of my monthly online newsletter went live today, with all the latest Darren Shan news and updates. The BIG news, of course, is that I'm in the process of making a PICTURE BOOK, and fundraising to help make it happen. You can pre-order copies of the book, and there are loads of REALLY cool perks to buy too -- stickers, limited edition prints... you could wind up having lunch or dinner with ME... or even go on an exclusive tour to places that inspired my books, with ME as yo...

The Terrified Troll campaign announcement

Are you ready for the first ever Darren Shan PICTURE BOOK?!? I hope so, because it's on its way!! And the even more exciting news is that YOU can be involved in its creation! It's going to be called... THE TERRIFIED TROLL. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/he... The artist is a friend of mind called EVA BYRNE. She's a well established prints artist, with almost a decade of experience under her belt, but this is going to be HER first picture book too. We ho...