Darren Shan's Blog, page 190
February 3, 2010
Final first
Flew back home to Ireland on Tuesday. Sorted through my emails and post, and started unpacking my bag, which took up a lot of the day. Also managed to write up the February issue of the Shanville Monthly, with all the latest news. Then, following a good night's sleep, I started my final full edit of Birth of a Killer, the first Mr Crepsley book. My editor has gone through it and made a round of suggestions and changes, nothing too major, just little tweaks which will make it a bit neater...
February 1, 2010
From Brussels to Jerusalem
Went to Brussels on the Eurostar on Friday with a group of friends, to celebrate my mate Dave turning 40. It's so easy to get to these days — from the centre of London to the centre of Brussels in 2 hours 5 minutes — incredible!!! We had a fab day on Friday, lots of chat and drinking and singing and dancing. Suffered a bit on Saturday, but not as badly as I feared, though it was hard to work up the energy for much later on in the day. When you get to our age it's hard to be the party...
January 28, 2010
Chillin'
I've been taking it easy in London for the last few days, enjoying the good life. Went to see Les Miserables for the first time in a few years. It's just as powerful and moving as ever — easily my favourite musical, though it can be a bit more work than most musicals. I miss the days when it played in the much bigger Palace Theatre, but it's still a huge show even on a smaller stage. On the movie front I've been to see The Road and The Book of Eli, a nice, cheery pair of...
January 27, 2010
March UK tour
I'm going to be doing a short tour in the UK in March to promote the release of my third book for adults, City of the Snakes, along with the re-release of my first two adult-aimed books (Procession of the Dead and Hell's Horizon) under the Darren Shan banner — they were previously released under the name of D B Shan. This will be the first time I have toured with my adult books, and the first time I will have ever read any extracts from them. You can find the schedule below — we are...
January 26, 2010
A Magic day, London-style
Monday was one of those lovely, just about perfect days that you only get every now and then. It started with a trip to the Royal Academy, where an exhibition about Van Gogh has just opened. Van Gogh is my favourite artist, and the exhibition brings together many brilliant examples of his work, presented in wonderful way. But what made it even more special was that Bas and I were treated to a private tour by the curator, Ann Dumas, the woman who had spent five years putting the...
January 24, 2010
50 cheers for Mary!!
Bas and I flew over to London on Thursday, then drove up to Norfolk on Friday to see her aunt, Mary, who is a Carmelite Nun. Carmelites live in an enclosed order, i.e. they almost never leave the walls of the convent where they live. Mary celebrated her 50th anniversary as a Carmelite this month, so on Saturday she had a big party after mass for many of her friends and relatives. We stayed in a group of cottages close to the convent, with lots of Bas's relations. It was fun to spend...
January 20, 2010
Winning poem
Here's the poem which I wrote for the winner of the January Shanville Monthly competition. I'll be expecting a Nobel Prize for Literature any day now… 
For Regina — "10 and counting"!!
Ten years of terror, a decade of blood,
Ten years of Shan raining hell from above!
It began in a toilet at young Darren's school,
He had no idea DesTiny could be so cruel.
For love of a spider he abandoned the light
And embarked on a life as a child of the night.
Over twelve books he grew and became a young man,
Who...
January 18, 2010
Q&A with Simon Harris
I was contacted by a university student recently, called Simon Harris, asking if he could interview me for a paper he was writing about vampires. I don't normally have time to respond to personal requests like this, but his questions interested me, so I figured I'd do what I could to answer them and help him out some. You can read the questions and answers below — and hopefully Simon will get back in touch once his paper has been completed and submitted, to let us all know how he got on!!!
January 15, 2010
Can he fix it? Yes he Shan!!!!
I've been editing the third Mr Crepsley book, Palace of the Damned over the last couple of days. This one deals with the period of his life when he went by the name of Vur Horston, something which was referred to way back in the first Cirque Du Freak book when Steve recognised him from a painting in a very old book — in fact, Steve thought that Vur Horston was his real name, something that quite a lot of fans thought too. This one explains why he used that name (it was for a very real...
January 13, 2010
Run those by me again?!?
I hadn't anticipated revealing the titles of the 4 upcoming books about Mr Crepsley's past for a while yet, but my publishers are keen to get the information out there, so here we go!! In order, they are as follows (with the UK and USA release dates in brackets after the titles — they release at the same time in both regions).
Book 1 — Birth of a Killer (October 2010).
Ocean of Blood (May 2011).
Palace of the Damned (October 2011).
Brothers to the Death (May...
