Darren Shan's Blog, page 19

Happy Halloween, 2023

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everybody!!! I hope you all have a wonderful day, and an even more wonderful night!! Best of luck if you're going out trick-or-treating -- just don't chown down on TOO many sweets tonight, alright?!? :-) I absolutely LOVE the display stand in the attached photo. It was created by the staff and students in Haberdashers' Adams school. How thrilling to see so many of my books represented, and from such different times in my career. I'll be posting here again a bit later tod...

Thisdreamsalive Father review

Father of the Future, my latest Darren Dash book for older readers, went on sale earlier this month. While it's always difficult to pick up lots of reviews for a self-published book, I've been very lucky to find some receptive reviewers who were willing to take a chance on it. One of those was the blogger THISDREAMSALIVE, who isn't a big fan of sci-fi in general, but thankfully connected rather nicely with Father Of The Future -- phew!!! The reviewer provided us with a neat, spoiler-free sum...

Humans 1, AI 0

I mentioned a while back that I'd signed my Archibald Lox series up to be adapted into AI audio books over on Apple, and was waiting to make an official announcement until they had all been released in that format. It's fair to say views on the matter were decidedly mixed -- some of you were excited by the news and more than happy to listen to an AI narrator even though there's no doubt the voice programme couldn't bring the same skills to the table as a professional human narrator, while others...

Picture book and school event

A busy day today! This morning I was busy filming a short video with an artist friend of mine to add to a fundraiser that we're setting up to finance the publication of my first ever picture book. You -- "EXCUSE ME?!?" Me -- yep, you heard right!! I'm going into the picture book business!!! (Lord Loss for babies?!? Not quite -- but not a million miles off, either!!!) I'll be talking a lot more about that here very soon (and trying to part some of you from some of your hard-earned cash!!)...

Bookshelfies October 2023

It's been a while since I shared some bookshelfies. Too long, in fact. So let's make up for the lull with these four beauties, all of which bizarrely belong to Shansters whose names start with the letter N!!!! First up we have NICK, whose Shan collection is spread across three shelves. I'm not quite sure why Nick doesn't move some of the Harry Potter books down a shelf, so that he can combine the two half-shelves of my books into a single shelf... or why there are a couple of Michael Crichto...

Goodreads Father reviews

Father of the Future, my latest Darren Dash novel for older readers, has been picking up some very nice reviews on Goodreads from advance readers. You can check out what people have to say about it by clicking here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...? Genuine reviews from readers are a really powerful tool in the publishing world. I know I often base my decision on whether or not to order a book based on checking out some of the reader reviews for it on a site...

Literary Connoisseur Father review

My new Darren Dash book for adults, Father of the Future, went on sale yesterday. As you can see on its Amazon page (or, indeed, any of the sites where the eBook is on sale), it's been picking up some very strong reviews. One of my favourite reviewers is a blogger called Rebecca, whose blog is titled The Literary Connoisseur. She's been reviewing my books for many years now, and her reviews are always in-depth, insightful and extremely well written. She doesn't review all that many books any...

Father on sale NOW!

Father Of The Future went on sale TODAY -- hurrah!!! My latest book under the name of Darren Dash, it's my first new release in more than a year, and my first book for adults in four years. A short sci-fi novel about a time-travelling "fixer" who starts to wonder if the apparently Utopian world of the 29th century is actually all that it's cracked up to be, or if its citizens aren't in fact slaves to an all-controlling super-computer. You can buy Father Of The Future as a budget eBook (just ...

Kirkus Father review

Father Of The Future goes on sale TOMORROW!!! It's been about four years since my last Darren Dash release, so it's fair to say this is long overdue. Hopefully it will prove worth the wait! The book was recently reviewed by industry heavyweight KIRKUS, who declared it was a "riveting, thought-provoking page-turner... This timely, gripping tale deftly illustrates the dangers of putting an artificial intelligence in charge." You can read the full review here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book...

Father of the Irish paperback

Less than 48 hours remain before the official release date for Father Of The Future, my next Darren Dash book for adult readers!! As I said last week, I released the hardback and paperback editions early, so that fans who want to buy a physical copy won't have to wait until after the 18th for it to be shipped. They're on sale through Amazon stores worldwide, and plenty of you have been snapping it up, so that love of having a book that you can hold in your hands is still strong in many reade...